Every Magic Has A Price
by Naomii386
Summary: "At the age of nine, I told my Dad I was afraid of the monster hiding in the trashy motel room's closet. He gave me a gun. At the age of nineteen, my father went missing. The same year, I've fallen in love. And after that, I died and went to Hell." A Tate/OC story, spiced with elements from shows like Supernatural. Read, review, and sadly, I don't own AHS nor the actors!
1. Chapter One - Face the Past

I was born in 1997.

At the age of four, I laid my eyes on a small bundle of fluffy blankets, a little red wrinkly hand poking out, and my Dad said he's my brother, Liam.

At the age of five, I saw my mother being burned alive.

At the age of nine, I told my Dad I was afraid of the monster hiding in the trashy motel room's closet. He gave me a gun.

At the age of eleven, I started seeing ghosts everywhere. When I told the teacher in my school I saw the janitor who died in an accident a few years back, she called in my father in the afternoon for a "grown-up talk".

At the age of sixteen, after a huge fight with my father, I ran away to my uncle. He took me in.

At the age of seventeen, I graduated and got a scholarship for the Washington State University.

At the age of nineteen, my father went missing.

The same year, I've fallen in love.

And after that, I died and went to Hell.

 **May 25, 2016.**  
 _ **Seattle, Washington**_

I dragged my feet across the stairs, one by one, they all seemed to conquer my strength and still, I managed, somehow. I never got why Reese had to have the top apartment rented; he said something about views. After a ten-hours shift at the supermarket on the corner, stacking the shelves, I couldn't give a fucking damn about the view, how the night sky was littered with shiny stars, like a black canvas with silver glitter, nor how the moon looked like a glimmering pendant.

All I felt was the dull ache in my heels, and instead of how it'd have been in a sonnet, there were no crickets, not in the smokey neighborhood we lived in. No, the noises of the night were some drunk guys hanging out behind the building and the cars passing down the road. An ambulance car passed through the street, shrieking with red and blue lights, as I finally reached the tenth floor and dragged out my keys after some rummaging in my sports bag which smelled of my sweat.

I couldn't care. I was home.

So was Reese. And judging by the pair of red high-heels (even the sight of them made my legs scream in pain), he wasn't alone. This conclusion of mine was soon confirmed by feminine giggling coming from the short corridor. The voice was followed by the appearance of a blonde, really beautiful woman and my uncle, Reese, laughing and kissing in a drunk haze. That is, until they saw me. I loved how my appearance caused them to try to look sober. They failed miserably, but still, I appreciated the effort.

"Hey, Charlie!" he slurred, immediately taking his hands off of the woman's hips. "You're home already?"

"Yeah, I worked till 10PM. Liiiike always," I smiled tiredly, dropping down the heavy bag containing my work stuff, and throwing my keys to the bowl next to the TV.

"I thought you said you were single," the woman remarked, looking beat-up and nervous right away.

"No, I am, I am, eeeh… Jessica? This is my niece, Charlotte. Charlotte, this wonderful woman is," Reese smirked, his greenish blue eyes tinkling with mischief, making the woman named Jessica giggle again," Jessica. We met at Macintosh's."

You simply couldn't miss the hint in his words. "Yeah, I figured. Actually, I thought I'd pay him a visit," I lied without blinking an eye. I wasn't twenty-one (though at Macintosh's, barely would anyone ever care about that, Reese has been working there for years and they knew me), but false words always came easily to my mouth; it was the only way of survival in our world, after all.

"Wonderful," Reese repeated, "my wallet's over there, take some money and have fun!" he waved me goodbye with joy (and, much to my disgust, clear desire) written all over his features as he looked down at Jessica and started herding her to his room. Before he disappeared from my sight, he mouthed 'thank you' to me.

I kicked my bag away from the middle of the room, and after getting some money from Reese, just-in-case, I hurried out, closing the door in the same moment as some disturbing sounds hit my ears. Although I grimaced (Reese was family, after all, like a second dad or the big brother I never asked for, sometimes the two in one person), I was happy to give him a few hours of peace and joy, a good night, before all went dark and gloomy again.

I was sure it would. It's been good for years now, and seeing how Karma was a bitch, I knew it would go bad again, pretty soon. I didn't expect 'soon' to be 'the moment I step out of the building' soon, though. All I wanted to find was a bench I could sit down to, because per usual, the elevator would not work when I was most exhausted and my feet were killing me, but, of course, I ran into unwanted company.

"Heeeey! If it isn't Lotte-Lotte!" I closed my eyes as soon as Travis's voice hit me, slapping me out of sleepiness at once. He was practically tangled over a bench, and some of the dickheads and cunts around him (how were there so many of them? Did they clone themselves in a basement or something?) chuckled. See, they were your typical asshole kids from around the block, partying and doing drugs and whatnot, whom you had only one look at they didn't like, you're their new favorite thing to toss around. I made the mistake, when I got here a few years ago, that I went to a party with them (see, I was desperately trying to fit into society, and since they were the popular kids, I stucked with them for a while) and in a half-drunken state, I told them I see ghosts. Ever since then, they think I'm a freak, that I'm mental, and started bullying me. Only I didn't let them toss me around, not getting anxious, no fidgeting, no nothing – there were so many things outside of them in the world I knew of or met personally, that I just couldn't care about their shitty attempts to higher their otherwise low self-esteem.

Tonight however, I just really didn't want to deal with them. Work has been awfully messed up, getting a supervision and all, it was a mad-house, and all I wanted to do was sleep. Actually, all I _ever_ wanted to do was sleep, because, let's face it, I had no other source of joy around; sleep was good, sleep was nice, sleep never tried to hurt me.

I ignored Travis, and took a turn to walk into the other direction.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Travis shouted before I heard multiple footsteps rushing toward me. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before turning around to be welcomed by Travis' smirk. He thought he looked hot and intimidating, I guess. I thought he looked like a giant gecko with a fake mustache. "What? You don' wanna hang out, eh?"

"Ah, no, she must be rushing to some Ghostbusters meeting or some shit," Travis's fucktoy, Jayla commented with a wild grin.

"Oh, no, no, no, she's havin' a date with Casper!" another boy, Flynn, I guess, added. They laughed. "You betta' start fuckin' a ghost too, Jayla, so you don have to use condoms no more. Or those pill-shits, those fuckers cost a fortune, man!"

"You must know, you have, what, three kids?"

"Only two, man, I swear that other fucker's ain't mine!"

"Enchanting," I remarked with a stern face.

"What? You think you better than us, bitch?" Jayla asked, or more like snorted.

"Let me not answer that question. Please."

"You think you're some hot shit, right?" Travis took a step toward me; he was so close I almost got intoxicated from the alcohol in his breath. "You look hot, alright. Nice tits, meat to grab… So you got into college, with some scholar-shit. So what? That ain't makin' you smart!"

"It actually does imply I have a high IQ," I sighed, getting really tired of them already. "That's why it's called 'higher education'. FYI."

Travis smirked as some of his band scoffed. I knew I was taking it too far, I should have simply let them bark at me for some more and then they would get bored and eventually leave, but I felt like my bullshit-o-meter was already full that day.

"Smart mouth. You know how to put it to better use?" he asked, making wet, squelching sounds with his lips. The others, as expected, laughed.

"Yup. Telling you good bye. Good bye," I said with a waving motion of my hand and took a step back, ready to turn around when Travis grabbed my shoulders harshly and yanked me forward. I felt rage slowly creeping into my veins.

"You ain't goin' away for fuck, babe."

I stared at his hand, slowly blinking. "You have one chance to take your hand off of me."

Travis and his pack let out a hyena-like laugh. "Or what? You'll tell Mommy and Daddy? Oh, wait – you don't have either!"

And that was what set me off. I grabbed his hand and twisted it with a swift motion, dislocating his shoulder. He let out a shriek, and pulling him closer, I kneed him in the chest, knocking out the air from his lungs momentarily.

Like how my Dad taught me.

The only thing Dad didn't teach me was how to pretend I didn't just beat up a guy when a police car pulls up next to me.

Travis' band, although a moment earlier they were trying to leap on me, ran away like rats from a sinking boat. The car put on the lights (or were they on earlier? I didn't hear nor see anything from the sudden wave of rage) and beeped before two officers jumped out, blinding me with their flashlights.

"Miss, this is the Seattle PD, put your hands up!" one of them shouted.

"Get her! She murdered me! She murdered me!" Travis screamed in a raw voice, still out of breath. I closed my eyes and cursed myself.

* * *

When I walked out of the station, the sun was already getting up, and Reese was waiting for me by the end of the stairs.

"I'm sorry," I muttered when I reached him, my head hanging low. Reese stood with his back to the railing and his hands stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket, looking up at the pale morning sun rather than me.

"He has bruised ribs," he said. I immediately felt even worse, which was soon turned into concern as a wide grin made its way onto Reese's face. "Damn, girl! You rock."

I've tried to hide my smile of triumph upon hearing the pride in his voice but I failed. "So how bad do I get it?"

"Well, Travis isn't happy," he commented, pushing himself away from the railing. I scoffed; of course, I knew that he wouldn't be happy and our next meeting could be unpleasant, even more so than it ever was before. After a few moments of thinking, Reese waved in resignation. "But that fucker had it coming, let's face that. Police knows, too, and seeing how you have no previous criminal record, I've managed to convince them to let it slip. They insisted to keep you in for a few hours to 'make you think over what you did', but you shouldn't feel any consequences. Definitely not at college, they won't hear about it."

We walked silently for a minute before I quickly confessed, "I don't know if I wanna get back there."

"Jail? You should definitely get back there. I heard they have spaghetti on Tuesday."

"No," I chuckled, hitting Reese in the shoulder as he crackled on his own joke," I meant college. I know I wanted to get in, to get a life, but… I don't know. I just don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. It's like everything is dull and grey and meaningless? I dunno."

"Look, I know you always reject the idea… But you should just try to get professional help," Reese offered in a much more softer way than how he usually did anything.

I cracked a sad smile. "They wouldn't know what's _really_ outside, so what's the point?"

"I know. No one does and that's the part that sucks. But here's what I do know: you're a smart, young girl, who's capable of so many things, who has so many gifts… You should just decide what you want. I'm not rushing you, take your time, you still have a lot, but… I don't think your Mom would've ever wanted you or Liam to get the type of life we had, or more like we didn't have. "

"I know," I nodded, trying not to focus too much on my mother and changing the subject before I could get too emotional. I grinned up at Reese." You're not helping me narrowing down my possibilities, are you?"

"Nope," he smiled and threw a hand over my shoulder. "You can be anything you want."

"A panda?"

"Especially a panda."

"President of the States?"

"Told ya: anything you want."

"And if I want to be a hooker?"

"… _Almost_ anything."

So, maybe Reese didn't help me decide what to do with my life, but he did make it clear I can't wait for him to tell me. The next one I asked what I should do was the Universe itself – I didn't really believe in any religion, but I desperately wanted to think there's something out there, and whatever it was, I hoped it would help me.

As so many times proved before, help comes in unexpected ways. For example, how my phone started to ring in the afternoon. The caller was unknown.

"Yeah, it's Charlie?" I frowned. Nobody called me, except my boss.

"Charlie?" The voice was familiar and new at the same time; an echo from my past, a giggle of a little boy shadowed by mutation of teen age. My heart stopped beating for a moment when he confirmed my thoughts. "It's me. Liam."

I felt like all the thoughts from my brain were flushed down the toilet before coming right back, only more than before, roaming up and down, making me feel dizzy.

"L… Liam?"

"Yeah. Sorry to disturb you, but…"

"Liam," I cut in, pinching the bridge of my nose. The words were heavy to say but I braced myself and forced back my tears. "I don't know why you called me, but I really don't care. I'm not coming back. Please, leave me alone, and…"

"Dad's missing. I haven't heard about him for weeks. He's just gone… Please, Lotte, I need your help!"

 **May 28, 2016**  
 _ **Los Angeles, California**_

When I knocked on the wooden door of the mansion-sized house and a red-haired woman opened the door, I knew immediately that she was a ghost. I actually saw her other form – not the old lady who was blind to one eye, which she wanted others to see, but the young, beautiful woman with a bullet hole instead of her right eye. It was vibrating and waving, two images at once like a bad, old television before I gathered up the power to concentrate on one (the old lady form) so I wouldn't get sick of the sight.

"May I help you, Miss?" she asked in the voice of a stern but sweet granny who lived a lot. I knew she didn't, well, not exactly, not outside the house like she should have.

I took off my aviator sunglasses and tried to smile. It wasn't easy, not with all the dark mojo of the house hitting me on the face with the gentleness of a battling ram.

"You must be Moira, correct? I'm Charlotte. Charlotte Blake."

"Mr. Ronald's daughter?" she asked, seemingly happy and relieved. "Please, don't stand on the porch, Miss!"

I stepped past Moira. The black energies, what I liked to call them, were even more intense inside, though I should have expected it. So much death, so much agony and anger packed inside… Shame. The house itself had a potential, if you didn't mind how it earned its name, 'Murder House'.

As I turned my attention to Moira, I realized something; she seemed pretty much alive. She seemed like she was actually there, not only her spirit; the ghosts I've met, some who've tried to kill me and others to seek my help, they could lift objects and all, but they weren't actually there. They were simply spirits, and you could wave an iron bar through them.

"The young lord will surely be thrilled about your arrival, and… Miss? Are you alright?" I heard Moira ask me and only then have I realized how I was staring at her blankly for a while. I blinked rapidly and nodded.

"Yes, yes, sure, I just… Would you mind…? If I…?" I asked, but before she could answer, I slowly poked her with my finger. She felt soft; cold, but still, soft and most importantly, material. How could this be?! She was dead, I've read all about them, how they died, when they died, and she's been dead for decades, and still, I could feel her! Something wasn't right here. And I started to feel that this something will bug me until I can name what it is exactly; it always did.

"Miss?" Moira repeated, raising an eyebrow.

My mouth formed a soundless 'wow'. "You have a body. You _actually_ have a body! This is fascinating. In a sad way of course, but…"

Something just wasn't right about it; not normal.

These worried thoughts were pushed to the side when I heard footsteps approaching.

"Charlie?" Liam poked his head around the corner, soon joined by his body as he inched closer. I haven't seen him in years, but still, I knew it was him, they were his features though he's changed so much! All of his cute baby-fat was gone, and actually he seemed really lean. How did a fifteen year old even have muscles? Wasn't he supposed to be lanky?

"I, ah… Hiya, Liam!" I waved awkwardly not really knowing what to do. Was I supposed to be hugging him? Wouldn't that be too much intimacy after I simply walked out of his life a few years back and ignored all his attempts to contact me? I was still thinking about what I should do and say when suddenly, he bolted right toward me and all I knew was that in the next second, he was crying against my shoulder.

* * *

"Soooo… Nice house," I commented. We were sitting at the kitchen isle while Moira was preparing some sandwiches Liam asked her to do; fortunately, her first instinct was to offer me some coffee and I accepted it gladly. I've been driving for almost two days, and I was afraid I'd fall asleep right away as I sat down. "Really nice. Well, if you don't mind how it makes people kill each other and their souls roam the estate for forever… _Then_ it's really nice… Are they all here? Whom I've read about on the internet?"

"I don't know what you've read," Liam mumbled, his eyes still red and puffy from crying," but yeah. There's like what? Twenty of them? Probably even more. Some even the others don't encounter. I don't know if that thing downstairs is alive or dead, but whatever, throw him in, too…"

"That's an awful lot," I stated with an uncomprehending grimace. "How do you keep them in bay?"

"We don't have to." Well, that was an interesting statement. "I'm sure you've realized they are different from ghosts we've met before…"

"Yeah. They have physical, bodily essence, well, I've only met Moira," I said, looking up at the maid who nodded with a small smile." It's almost as if…"

"As if they are still alive? Yeah. Dad believes there's something around here that keeps them in this strange half-alive form. That's why we're here."

I closed my eyes to soothe the storm in my soul before letting out sigh. I knew where this was heading. "Dad thinks this place can help him bring Mom back?"

"Yeah," Liam mumbled, tapping his fingers on the counter absent-mindedly.

I licked my lips, and took a sip of my coffee. "And you?" Liam jerked his head up. "What do you think about it?"

"All I know is that this place is nothing like I've ever seen. Something keeps their souls here; something eats at their human side and sometimes makes them do really wicked things, but…" He looked up at Moira, looking for support. I kind of found it weird, how my little brother, who came from two family with long lines of supernatural hunters, was waiting for approval from a ghost. I had to admit, though, that Moira was a new kind of ghost. And she made awesome coffee. "We've explained to them who we are, what we usually do, and made a deal. If they help us find out what's going on around this house, then, when we find the solution, we'll bring them back to life as well. Or, if they want to, we can unbind their souls so they can finally rest in peace. Whichever they prefer."

"And you all just agreed? Simple as that?" I asked Moira who placed a plate in front of Liam.

"We are more reasonable than you would believe, Miss."

I shook my head and lent back in my chair. "The ghosts I've met so far… Some tried to seek my help, sure, but most of them tried to kill me and my family, and they were all delusional. Your thoughts seem to be clear, though."

"I do not know what's different in this house, but we all hope your family will find out the truth and I can finally rest, whatever awaits me. Now, that you're here, our hopes are even brighter; we've heard of your abilities…"

"I'm only here until we find our father," I cut in, shooting Moira an apologizing glance before continuing. "Two and a half week he's been gone, you said? We'll trace back what he was doing, find clues, find him, bring him back and I'm headed off to Seattle again. That's all I can offer."

"But Charlie…" Liam started, pleading.

I shook my head furiously and stood up. "No! You said you need my help to find Dad, and I'm okay with that, but don't forget: I've quit. I'm out of the game. Now, I'm merely a smartass fan from the grandstand, shouting in instructions for the players… Whatever Dad is doing with his agenda, that's none of my business."

"Of course it is!" Liam forced, anyway, and stood to look me straight in the eye. We were the same height, now; maybe he was an inch taller, even, and I knew he'd grow some more. His grayish blue eyes, perfect mirrors of mine, raged with emotions. "We're a family, Charlie; all we have is each other! Please… don't leave again."

My heart wrenched, but I couldn't let my emotions take over; nothing good ever comes of that, they just make life harder, and decisions impossible. I had to pull my steel-armor over my heart and soul, or more like a wire fence, and let my head take charge. It was an awesome trick I've learned; instead letting emotions fuck you over and spit you out, just ignore them. It will still be awful, but you won't care.

"I love you, Liam," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder as I bored my eyes into his," but I can't get involved, not again. I have to go back to college. I can make a difference there." Lies, lies, awful lies; I grossed myself out, sometimes, but I had to. I couldn't do it any other way; I was too weak for facing this entire burden which fell upon me.

"You don't think you can make a difference here?" His voice was so hopeful I almost cracked. I couldn't let that happen, so I sighed and rubbed my temple.

"Look, killing supernatural beings for the rest of my supposedly short life sounds like a really attractive idea, but then again, so was getting on the Titanic, and look what happened… The point is: I'm too tired for serious life-decisions right now. Could you show me where I can camp while I'm here? I swear I won't go anywhere and we can figure out something tomorrow. If your ghost friends don't kill me in my sleep, I mean," I added the last part light-heartedly, although I didn't fancy the idea of sleeping in a house full of ghosts. Ghosts weren't roomies. They were enemies; that's what I was taught. It's a hard job, overwriting a core program.

A part of me actually wasn't afraid of ghosts killing me in my sleep; more so, looked forward, partly because, like other humans, I've always wondered what death was like, what happened afterwards, and partly because I always saw death as not the end, but the beginning of something. The end of the dull grey mist hanging over everything, maybe. These parts of me, however, I held locked away.

"They won't. Believe me, all of them really want to get rid of this house," Liam sighed. "Still, there's salt in the kitchen if you'd like to be cautious…"

I did.

An hour and a shower later, I closed the door of my new room behind me, the oversized t-shirt and loose pajama pants soft like a blanket on my tired limbs. I kicked into the bag I've brought with me, and fell freely on my bed.

I felt the presence before the ghost spoke, so I wasn't startled.

"I see you haven't made your salt-circle yet," he said, and with a groan, I sat up. The ghost who came to visit me was a boy around my age, give or take a few years, with fluffed blonde hair and eyes so dark brown I couldn't find his irises. He was standing casually by the shelves, looking at the CD collection I've brought with me here, wearing dark blue ripped jeans and a huge, stripped sweater; for a moment, though, he appeared in all black glory, his sweater torn by possibly bullets, blood leaking from the wounds before it went back to normal. He looked like he owned the place; remembering how he was a ghost, and recalling my research, I had to remind myself that he did own it once.

"Seems like I should have," I commented harshly, making him chuckle. He had dimples. Actually, I never saw a ghost with dimples before – maybe because they were only trying to kill me, and not smile or anything. "How come you know about it?"

"I watched you," he confessed without shame. Guess it was natural around here, living-sighting, almost like a grotesque Animal Planet documentary.

"Wow. Stalker much?"

He shrugged. " I've been called worse." I watched as he slowly went through all the CDs, taking a good look at half of them, reading some track lists and seemingly getting amused. "Is this band any good? You seem to have a dozen of their CDs and their covers look cool…"

"My Chemical Romance? Yeah, they're awesome. You can take those CDs, if you want to and listen to it somewhere you can?" I offered, hinting how I would prefer to be left alone. He either didn't realize it or didn't give a shit about what I wanted.

"I can borrow them? Thanks, awesome," he smiled at me with a strange mixture of cuteness and gloom.

"Can I offer you anything else?" I asked then, leaning slightly to the side with a raised eyebrow. "A cup of tea? Therapy session? A joke? A kick in the ass?"

He chuckled again, sending a shiver down my spine; whether it was with pleasure or fright I couldn't quite decide. "I got that all covered, thanks. A joke would be nice, though; most around here don't seem to have a sense of humor."

So I've managed to find a ghost who was thirsty for a joke. I really wouldn't have guessed this would happen when I woke up in the morning this day.

"Alright. How do you search for literature? You must be very Thoreau." I've tried to find the lamest joke I've ever heard, hoping it would make him believe I was humorless as well. Of course, it wasn't easy. I mean, I'm naturally hilarious.

When he actually laughed, he managed to startle me.

"That was horrible," he said, wiping a tear from his eye. "Almost like the ' _What does Edgar Allen write? Poe-try'_ one."

"Great. A book-geek ghost. It gets better and better," I sighed, rubbing my face tiredly. "Look, I kind of had a rough past days, would you mind leaving me alone to sleep and then tomorrow I can continue to try to convince you that you actually hate me?"

"I don't hate you," he stated matter-of-factly."You seem interesting."

"Just wait and see," I grinned. He mirrored.

"I'm Tate, by the way. Tate Langdon."

"I know. I'm not happy to meet anyone, but I'm Charlie."

"I know." After a few more moments of him staring at me, and me finding it creepier by the wake, he eventually took a step toward the door. "Well then, I'll get going. You shouldn't forget the salt-circle, this time."

"I won't", I half-promised, half-threatened, and with a final, dimple-showing smile, he disappeared.

The ghosts in this house were sure strange.

I made a double-circle of salt. Just in case.

* * *

 **Sooo, hello, guys! I've been a fan of AHS for a few years now, but recently I watched the first season again (definitely my favourite), and since I've been having the urge to write, I ended up making this. As you can see, there's not that much of interaction between my OC's and the others. It will change, since this is a Tate/OC story, but I don't just want to write something where the main goal is getting the OC into the canon hottie's bed. I'm trying to put together some enjoyable background-story as well, using all kind of supernatural resources including shows like Supernatural. Maybe I can give a satisfactory explanation as to what made the Murder House? And also, taking away some of the darkness and trying to give everyone a kind of pleasurable ending.**

 **Anyway, it's long as it is. I hope you'll stick around, and please, please, let me know what you think about it! It would mean an awful lot. After all, if no one likes is, I might as well just keep it to myself, right? :)**

 **Thanks for reading, and I, sadly, don't own anything!**


	2. Chapter Two - Finding Dad

**So, here's the next chapter! I hope you'll like it, please, let me know what you think! :)**

 **I don't own anything, including a beta, so read at your own risk.**

 **Thank you, universe without a soul, for leaving a review! I hope I'll be able to write something different and enjoyable! **

* * *

Despite what some would think, my dreams were actually nice and fluffy, rainbow-farting unicorns and such shit. Ridiculous, but nice, anyway. I surprised myself with the short amount of time I needed in order to fall asleep (I blamed the long ride, and totally not the fact that I was simply a survivor out of luck), and when I did, the dreams were messed up and enjoyable once again. There was this carrot-man whom I found lovely for some reason and actually planned to marry him but left him at the altar. He wasn't happy, and he started throwing baby-carrots at me. It took me a while to realize that I was actually being thrown at.

My eyes shot open and in the next moment, I took my Colt from under my pillow and aimed at whoever was throwing tiny paper-pieces at me.

"Bitch, what?!" I groaned as I took in the sight of the reddish-brown haired girl. Or woman. Whatever, the point is, I felt the dark energy rolling off of her; she was a ghost. What a surprise.

"Good morning, sunshine!" she grinned viciously, crossing her arms in front of her chest. I didn't like the way she leant so casually against the dresser. She was dead. I was alive. I was a hunter (of sorts) and killed ghosts like her. Shouldn't she feel at least a bit worried about my gun being pointed at her? And yet, I was the one feeling violated. "Thought you'd never wake up."

"You wish." I lowered the gun and hid it under the pillow again. I didn't have much hunter-stuff anymore; but this one I kept, along with a few different bullets, purely for the sake of my health. I mean, kill, before you get killed, right? This is how it goes.

"Actually not," she said with a pout. "I almost can't wait to have Blondie shouting 'I love you' again all through the house and crying – it's always hilarious when he's crying. But I have other reasons as well."

To be honest, I didn't really pay attention to her, not that she bothered; I guessed she just liked to hear her own voice. Instead, I turned my attention to my phone on the nightstand, and heaved a sigh; it was 7AM. That shouldn't even be considered an hour.

"Shit-fuck," I mumbled idly as I rubbed my face (as if I could scour the sleepiness off of me) and leant forward. The paper-pieces fell off of me – my face, my hair, my shoulders and chest – almost gracefully; I took one and started to straighten it. "What are these, anyway?"

She shrugged carelessly. "Good-wishes."

I snorted and rolled my eyes; the paper read 'DIE' on it. I supposed the others were the same. I started to understand why Tate said ghosts around here don't have humor.

"Really funny. Didn't you say like a minute ago that you don't want me dead?"I asked without interest, forcing my legs to move and swing to the side.

"Maybe, maybe not. I've got issues."

"Yeah. I never would've guessed."

She was definitely feeling smug as she pushed herself away from the dresser and took long, energetic steps to the very barricade of the salt-circles. "You go to college, right? Guess what, I once went to college, too. Then I fell in love with my professor, he got me pregnant and killed me, damning my soul here for eternity. Get where I'm poking at?"

I averted my gaze to the ceiling and pouted the corners of my lips in anticipation. Sleeping in a house full of weird ghost-ly spirits wasn't on my bucket list, and I've got to strike it out, anyway – having a conversation full of riddles in the morning wasn't to my liking, either, and I was starting to get irritated. This wasn't how normal life was supposed to be; and burning-hot rancor coiled inside of me toward my father. How was he such a jerk to just disappear, without a word? This wasn't fair; and I shouldn't be suffering for it.

"Nah," was my final answer, not really caring about her problems, anyway. She, however, seemed to insist on my caring; and by that, I mean that an ear-scratching shriek left her mouth as she hurtled toward me, fingers hunched like claws, either to strangle me or scrape my eyes out. She bumped into the invisible wall of the salt-circle, but she didn't seem to care.

"Get to work, bitch!" she squawked, gnashing her teeth. Her fist came into contact with the blockade with a dull thump – damn, was she mental. She resembled the ghosts I've known in a hideously comforting way. "Get off of your ass and do your fucking job, free me, or I swear, this'll be the best morning you'll be having for the rest of your stay."

I couldn't say that I wasn't afraid of her; I was afraid of most everything, actually, knowing well that even a good person can do horrid things under the wrong pressure. The key was to not let that fear take control over you; although I still battled with my survival instinct which urged me to quail and cow, I didn't react as much as to blink.

"Just a good-natured advise: it's not wise to threaten someone whose aid you depend on."

It was evident in the fall of her expression that this wasn't the reaction she was expecting; she remained in that angered, lunatic state for a few more moments before a Cheshire-cat grin spread on her lips.

"Believe me, sweetheart; I'm not the worst thing in this house, and you still don't want me to be your personal nightmare."

I started to think that ghosts that were simply trying to murder me cold weren't that bad; they were strong and inhuman and fearful, yes, but they were also mindless like an attack-dog. This girl? She simply looked like a psychopath to me; and a sick human was always worse than a brutal, unreasoned creature.

It took a great effort not to let my pokerface slip; one misstep, and I was as good as dead – she seemed intelligent enough to actually mean and try to fulfill what she wants. She resembled those Travis-type persons all too well; if you let them push you around, if you only show them as many as one soft spot…

My jaw clenched as I stood up, trying to look as easy-going as I could master. "Believe me, sweetheart," I mimicked her honeyed voice," you don't want me as your enemy, either."

Her hazel eyes looked straight into my irises like a virus, trying to find that weakness in the firewall where it could sneak in and destroy everything.

I was taller than her and had a stronger built, still, she seemed to be a fair match, her insanity versus the powers I had and feared.

"Go away," I demanded finally; I was satisfied with that amount of sturdiness I've managed to put into my voice. Whether it was due my firmness or her running out of threats to throw at my head, I don't know, but with a final, unsettling smile, she disappeared, and I was left alone. Only when I was sure there was no other presence in the room did I allow myself to slump back on the bed and take some deep, calming breaths to relax my madly racing heart.

I really hoped these ghosts didn't have the ear of werewolves, because the rapid _thump-thump_ in my chest would've given me away effortlessly.

When the beat was back to its normal rate, I had to face reality again – there was no sleep in my eyes anymore, and with a groan, I headed to the bathroom to get ready. Taking my time, I eventually wandered into the kitchen an hour later, following a trail of appetizing scent. Moira stood next to the cooker, an omelet crepitating in the pan whilst Liam sat at the counter, his mouth stacked with what seemed to be a fair mixture of bacon and scrambled eggs. It almost seemed like some cereal's TV advertisement, and it only took me a bit of concentration to let a flash of young Moira's bullet-pierced skull chase away all the scene's quietude. _She's dead_ , I had to remind myself. _A dead woman is feeding my little brother breakfast._

"Good morning, Miss," Moira's voice pulled me back to the kitchen from the never-ending field of my doubts I just stepped into. Liam raised his head and smiled at me with his mouth full; fortunately, he swallowed before talking. I couldn't decide whether it was Moira's bidding to teach him some manners or he simply started to grow up.

"Howdy, stranger!" he beamed with a horrible southern accent and patted the bar stool next to him. My stomach grumbled as I took the spot and got closer to the heavenly scent of breakfast. I couldn't remember the last time I had breakfast that wasn't pre-made or in a diner.

"Good morning," I muttered, still not quite over how calm they both seemed and I had to conclude that for months, it probably went this way, Moira cooking for Liam, which he happily accepted and thanked, forgetting about the tiny bit of detail of how she is a ghost and he is a hunter. Of sorts.

"I hope you like omelet, Miss; Mr. Blake said you like feta with spinach, so I put some in it with sweet pepper. Hopefully, you'll be pleased," Moira added with a dim smile as she put the omelet on an impossibly white porcelain plate.

"Moira," Liam whined, almost head-butting the counter in the process. "I told you: Mr. Blake is Dad, at top, just… please, call me Liam!"

Moira seemed to be relentless in the case. "It wouldn't be appropriate, Mr."

The psycho-girl's words echoed through my ear as the plate was slid in front of me – her words about her not being the worst thing around. She may have been insane or some shit, but who's to say she didn't have some truth in her words? If she had, who could be the one I should keep my eyes on? So far, I've only met Moira, Tate and her – but there were others.

Suddenly becoming suspicious toward everything, I scowled, drawing the attention of Moira.

"It's not poisoned, Miss, I assure you," she said lightly, as if I wasn't accusing her soundlessly with an attempt to murder me. She didn't seem offended the last bit, but then again, she may have been simply better at hiding her feelings than me at perceiving them.

"One would say the same if it _was_ poisoned," I pointed out, slowly taking hold of the fork.

"I suppose so."

I ate it anyway. And it was fucking delicious.

"So, did you get any sleep last night? Safe behind two circles of salt?" Liam inquired, not trying to hide how funny she thought my caution was. I couldn't put my hand on why he was so easy around here; I just couldn't. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I didn't feel like I was welcomed at all, not by those living or stuck here, but the house itself. I felt self-conscious just sitting and eating breakfast, almost like I interrupted something I wasn't meant to be part of.

"Actually, yes," I shrugged, downing another fork-full of omelet. "And it wasn't as bad as I expected; although, I have to admit, I could've done without ghosts randomly appearing in the room like they were invited to a slumber-party."

"What d'ya mean?"

"Well, _Tate, the Friendly Ghost_ paid me a visit at first, eager for a joke," I pondered, gesticulating with the fork," and then there was Whomping Willow in the morning, now, that was a cheerful call."

"Yeah, Tate has this thing," Liam said with a sheepish smile, scratching the back of his neck. I wanted to correct him, saying, _more like he doesn't have this thing called 'respect for personal-space'_ , but eventually I remained silent." He and Moira are the ones usually showing themselves, but… Whomping Willow? …Do you mean Hayden?"

"She was threatening me… Didn't quite catch her name."

"Then it's definitely Hayden. She's kind of… eager to leave, and has a hard time being patient."

"Oh, she should be _patient_ … At an asylum, I mean." The words left my mouth without me thinking them over; and the moment I looked up at Moira, I regretted them. She didn't look quite… anything other than calm, but still, there was something in her eyes that made me feel ashamed. "Sorry. I just don't take threats too well."

"If I may, Miss, I believe that whatever resides in here, it makes even the best of us perform wicked things."

"And what about those who are already the worst of humanity?" I asked quietly, looking up at Moira resignedly. One look she gave me, and the sorrow and despair of it, the silent, cold truth punched my appetite in the face. I pushed the plate away. "Alright, let's get down to business: Dad."

Liam's head jerked up, a heavy, rueful sigh escaping his mouth as I turned my torso toward him. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything. Anything can be important, the smallest of details, something you wouldn't even consider a clue. What was he working on before he went away? What did he tell you?"

"Nothing, actually," he mumbled, toying with his fingers and consciously avoiding my gaze. He barely gazed up at me before looking away. "He… usually doesn't tell me much, but this time, it was even less. Literally, he said he's going on a hunt and that he'll be back in a week or so, contacting me if he gets delayed."

"He didn't tell you what he was hunting?" I asked with a scowl. Liam shook his head. How could it be…? Before I went to Uncle Reese, he always took me with him, I saw the first ghost-hunt when I was twelve, and Liam was fifteen already. Even before Dad took me with him, he always told me, us, what he case he was working on, descriptions of how to kill different monsters instead of bedtime stories and our father-daughter time meant looking through the newspapers and news portals, trying to find something that's out of ordinary.

 _Maybe he's trying to be a better father_ , I guessed silently. _Maybe he's trying to protect Liam…_

I shook my head. _Too late for that._ I _wanted_ to be mad at him, because that was the only clear and strong feeling I had in a long while, so I didn't listen to the voice asking to forgive him. Instead, I focused on trying to find him – another burden he laid upon me and Liam without our permission.

"Did you see what he took with him, then?" I questioned, my mind racing, newer and newer propositions coming forward as to how to find him.

"Not much," Liam mused, scratching his chin with a frown as he tried to recall what happened. "He only took a bag with him, full of clothes; and the arsenal in the trunk. Lately, he's been using the cover of a deer hunter so he has a hunting rifle, a Remington 700 I believe, and, ah… A Browning A5 Magnum? I guess. It may be a Remington, too, though… Dunno. A shotgun for sure. He has official papers, licenses, permissions… Well, fake, of course, but high quality."

"Nothing else?"

"Nah-ah. He even left his Glock here… I have it locked away in a safe."

I raised my eyebrows at that. "Well… Maybe he wasn't expecting any face-to-face combat. An assassination case, maybe… A vampire? You better take them out from afar, a single modified wooden bullet coated in silver through the heart, and _bamm_. Or maybe a wendigo, they are nasty little bitches when you're close to them, always trying to bite, though it's probably too hot for them here… Maybe a werewolf? Ah, but this is just me guessing, it can be anything," I groaned in frustration and tapped on the counter while thinking. I locked my eyes on Liam. He was still fussing around. "You really didn't hear anything? Not even when he was doing research or something? And all the ghosts here, doing living-watching? They don't know anything?"

"Dad had this little room separated in the basement," he explained, seemingly uncomfortable with the lack of information he could provide. "He did some renovations, mainly consisting of building in salt-circles and signs on the walls to keep everything outside including ghosts, and I wasn't allowed, either. A week and a half later, after he still didn't call me, I started to get antsy and went down, but it was clear."

"I'll look around later, just in case," I nodded in agreement, and cracked my neck." And what about contacts? Do you have an informant around? Another hunter-pack, maybe?"

"No, you know how Dad is…" I knew; most of the other hunters found Dad a maniac for trying desperately to find a way to bring Mom back, and also, his little agenda against the demon that killed her seemed to irritate most of them as well. Hunters were supposed to protect the people, not going on a killing spree for revenge, and although Dad was merely following trails, not being a serial killer, most still didn't like him, and he disliked back. Still, there were some trusted few whom he counted on. "He gets information from Jack and Camille, but they're still in Washington. And I don't know about any other hunter… But, you know. LA and Hollywood are pretty big."

A sudden wave of panic rushed over me as I thought about the monumental scale we were talking about here; he said he'd be gone for a week, which meant he may have gone further away. How were we supposed to find him without having any idea where to start picking up the line?

"Damn," I muttered in distress, burying my face in my hands; I may have overestimated my capability of solving this.

Liam must have misunderstood the source of my annoyance (which was myself), and looked down at his leg shamefully. "I'm not much of a help, am I?"

My head shot up, my gaze lingering over his features – boyish, tiptoeing to the edge of manly – lovingly. "That's not what I meant, you asshole." Well… You could say my thoughts were more often sweet and nice than my words; I just felt that the feelings I have are not meant for saying. "We'll figure out something."

Liam rewarded my efforts with a small, fake smile before looking up at the clock and jumping off the stool. "I have to get to school now… Will you be alright?"

"No, Liam, I can't take care of myself, please, skip school for me, baby bro," I pouted. This earned a punch in the shoulder from him, with which I was far more familiar. "Which one are you going to?"

"Westfield High."

I snorted, remembering the research I did on Tate. "Figures… It has a good reputation."

"Bad things happen everywhere," Liam shrugged, picking up his bag from a chair nearby.

"Do you want me to give you a lift?"

"Nope, thanks. I have a ride already."

My natural obsession with secrets and sisterly over-protectiveness spiced with down-to-the-bone suspicion toward everyone around made it hard not to ask a lot of questions in situation like this.

"Really? You have friends around here?" This possibility felt heart-warming and sorrowful at the same time; I was very happy for Liam, after all, we never stayed in the same place for long when I was younger, and given they've been living here for the past months, that meant Liam could have the life he deserved. Although, I had to admit, I was jealous; it was shameful, but I wished _I_ could've had the same, and this part of me found it unfair.

Liam seemed to be hiding a smile threatening to stretch his face by biting into his lip. Suddenly, his cheeks reddened.

"Oh la la," I laughed with the mocking tone of the older sibling. " _She_ must be something, right?"

"Yeah, she is," he nodded, tugging on the strap of his bag. "I'll introduce you to her… someday."

"Go get her, tiger," I patted him on the back before he made it to the door. Before he could have closed it behind him, I shouted," Hey, Liam! Wait, last question: what did Dad say, what should you do if something goes wrong?"

"Again, not much," he sighed. "He said… 'Keep West Virginia in mind'. I checked; we've never even been to Virginia once, and he has no relations there."

* * *

I knew that Dad, the asshole he could be, would never leave Liam without a clue, and this time, it seemed to be that 'West Virginia' would be that. The problem was: I had no idea what he meant. I had a faint memory of some distant relatives of mom in Huntington (the irony) but they were unaware of the supernatural, and I only met them once, at the funeral of Mom. Maybe Dad was trying to tell Liam to leave this place and the hunting, too, if he dies? It was possible. But not possible _enough_.

Sitting, or more like lying on the stairs inside (that was the only place that I found neutral, like it didn't belong to anyone else, unlike the rooms), I surfed the internet on my laptop with a deep frown on my face. Once again: I felt his presence, before I actually saw or heard anything.

"Boo!" Tate exclaimed, leaning over me from a few steps above. Crooking my neck backwards, I rested my head on the step he stood on, my gaze getting lost in his black eyes for a moment before raising an eyebrow.

"Nice try, Casper. Maybe next time," I stated, almost proud of myself at how well I've managed to keep me from smiling in triumph. For a moment, I creased my forehead, scowling at how easy it seemed to forget about him being a ghost. _Ghosts aren't roomies_ , I reminded myself. _They are enemies._

"Damn, how come you're not startled at all?" he asked, laughter lighting his voice as he hopped down the steps and took a seat next to me. I took my gaze off the laptop screen to look at him (I had to seize the distance to calculate how much time would I need to punch him in the face or shot him with the rock-salt bullet I had loaded into my gun I had, hid under my loose t-shirt), noticing how grinning made his dimples visible again.

"Do you want me to be startled?"

"No," he answered after a bit of thinking. "It would add to my manly confidence, but, you know… I like fierce girls."

My eyes went from the screen to him again, but not actually seeing him, merely staring. A ghost did _not_ just try to flirt with me. My life can't be that fucked up.

A visible shiver ran down my spine which he didn't broach. "So, what do you want this time?" I asked, turning back again to add a few more criterions to the search I was doing. His eyes were too intense and too dark; reminded me of demons, the same soul-deep stare, to be honest, and that made me too nervous to keep eye-contact. "Another joke? Or coming back for that ass-kicking?"

He slid closer to me, I felt that, but the closeness only revealed its true amount when I felt his shoulder touching mine, his breath on my neck as he spoke, leaning over my shoulder to look at the screen. "No-pe, I just wanted to hang out… What's about West Virginia?"

I've tried leaning away from him, his proximity being uncomfortably intimate – he really had no idea about personal space, or he simply didn't care – but I was already right next to the wall.

"Don't know yet," I replied, honestly for a change as I closed the window I had open, going back to the search and opening another link. "But that's the only clue I have so far, so…"

Tate remained silent, so silent actually, that if it wasn't for his breathing hitting my neck every once in a while, and that intangible aura ghosts always seemed to have (maybe it was the breath of death or something), I would have thought he went away. After a while, I started to wonder; those ghosts I've met before, they weren't breathing, right? I mean, they were dead… They didn't need to, right?

"Maybe you shouldn't take it literally," he suggested after I've closed the hundredth window explaining the geography, climate and residential potential of the state. I wasn't expecting him to speak up so out of the blue, so he did manage to somewhat startle me, and maybe he knew that too, which would have explained the satisfied, lazy cat expression he had on.

"What do you mean?" I tilted my head to the side with confusion.

"Like I said: try not taking 'West Virginia' literally… Like poems. A bird flying away isn't _just_ a bird flying away… Well, not for everyone. It's a symbol of freedom for those who know the key, how to reveal the secret behind the obvious words. What could West Virginia mean that way?"

"I, ah…" The scowl on my face seemed to be constant now, as I tried to process what he said and started to realize he could be right. After all, Dad, according to Liam, didn't say 'go to West Virginia'. He said: 'keep in mind'. My blue irises bore into Tate's nearly black ones with suspicion. "Why are you helping me?"

He seemed genuinely confused by my question, his smile melting off of his face, like snow under the pale spring sun, to give space for uncertainty. "Why wouldn't I? I like Ronald. He's nice to me."

I couldn't help but scoff," My father? Nice? I'm not even sure we're looking for the same dude, then…"

Tate smiled a one-sided smile before squinting for a moment. "I heard you've run away," he said then, once again taking me by surprise how completely unaware he was of the fact that his nose had no business poking around stuff like that.

"Heard or eavesdropped?" I asked harshly.

"Heard," he repeated steadily, his eyes appearing to host real warmness in them; now, that was something completely unlike demons. "You ran away from your family, from your life… I can relate to that."

I frowned again, but this time it was out of surprise, and, I hated to admit, a bit of hope. "Really?"

I thought he was messing with me, just like how Travis and his band did before straight away starting to pick on me, but it seemed like with Tate, his understanding was true.

"Yeah… I wanted to do that, too," he confessed with a dolorous smile, fidgeting with the oversized sleeve of his also oversized pullover. "I hated school and my bitch mother, and nothing made sense, you know? I was fighting through every day for nothing, so I was, like, why the fuck not? But I didn't, I couldn't get myself to actually gather up the courage and make that step. Fuck me, right?"

"It's not courage, really," I snorted, not at his words, but my own actions. "Quite the opposite. If I had the courage, I'd have stayed, don't you think?"

"No," he smiled. And for a faltering moment, I forgot to remember how he wasn't alive anymore – how could he be dead? He seemed to be alive, he _felt_ like alive.

It was a passing moment of weakness, really; after that, I recalled how the calmest and sweetest persons carried out horrid things more often than it should have happened. Like, Tate seemed like your usual teenage boy from the '90s, looking like Cobain, speaking of running away – and then it just happens he deals with pressure by becoming a school-shooter. What is it, fifteen kids he murdered?

Remembering that fact pulled me away from awe easily. Of course, the only boy ever paying me attention and telling me how he understands me would be a ghost of a murderer. _Figures_. They say Ted Bundy was quite a charmer as well.

"So, not literally… West Virginia…" I mumbled, tapping on the touchpad aimlessly as my thought flood free around my head. _Virginia. Indians. Virginia Company. Pocahontas. Shit, that's not the right direction… Redesigning. West-Virginia. Mountains. Montani semper liberi or some Highlander shit. Coal mines. Under the mountain… Hidden, underneath…_

My eyes grew wide as the realization hit in. I found it. I _fucking_ found it!

The laptop got closed in such a hurry that I wasn't even sure it's working anymore but I didn't care, tossing it aside and jumping up and hurrying down the stairs. I heard the faint noise of Tate doing the same.

"Where are you going?" he questioned, sounding kinda worried of the sudden change in my behavior.

"The basement," I stated before stopping swiftly, as if I bumped into a wall. The sudden stop almost caused Tate to bump into me, and I turned toward him. "Where's the basement?"

"The opposite direction," he pointed behind his back with his thumb, making me curse under my breath. "But what's with the basement?"

"I just… I might have an idea. Do you know where the room is my Dad used?"

"Yeah, of course, but I don't think you should go down there," he stood before me, blocking my way.

I raised an eyebrow. "Wow. _Sweet_. Really. Now, show me the way, please?"

Tate didn't seem too happy about it, and I honestly had no idea what's his problem. It was either the realization of not being able to hold me back from going down or he simply felt like helping me, but he nodded and led me to the basement's door, opening it for me, the old door creaking on its hinges.

I was faced with the darkest dark I've ever seen. The kind that swallows every light, every sound, and feels like _nothingness_.

But there was also this other kind of darkness – this dark, pulsing energy, which almost seemed to be set free with the door being open, and licked the hallway with its ugly tentacles like the ocean licks the shore, smooth and steady, pulling back so it can come back with a forceful wave.

This wave hit me when I took the first step down; I had a slight headache since I arrived, one which I've always had at haunted places, and I usually didn't pay attention to it anymore, it was like a constant buzz. But this time, the headache grew to unbearable depths, to the point where I felt y skull being torn into confetti, nerve by nerve. My ear started to ring, louder and louder, and I pressed my hands to my temples, pushing hard, hoping to make the pain burst out like a bottle of ketchup.

Something _did_ pop. And in the next moment, I fell down the stairs as the darkness swallowed me.


	3. Chapter Three - Fair Warning

**Hey guys!**

 **So I'm back again. I had a multiple reasons for abandoning this story, I won't bore you with them, but I'm here now, and hopefully, I'll be able to continue on. :D**

 **Thank you, for your kind words reviewers (Guest, universe without a soul, Martine 9295, Demona Evernight and bbymojo) it was eventually all of you whom drove me back here! :)**

 **For the Guest who commented about Supernatural: I did get a few elements from that, but only the background - how their mom was killed by a demon, leaving the father with the two, and one of them left, but that's all, and I don't plan on involving anything else, well, outside a few hunter-things. :) I actually plan on getting it rather on the spiritual and witchcraft-side... But I won't spoil anything.**

 **Thank you for reviewing, again, and have fun reading! Warning: I don't have a beta, and English isn't my native language.**

* * *

When I regained my consciousness, I was rewarded with a tremendously pounding head. I never had a hangover before, but I was sure it was way worse than any human could produce by overdrinking – for a moment, I got the idea that maybe my head wasn't whole anymore, but rather torn apart, pieces of Charlie-skull and brain-matter scattered across the floor like a dropped watermelon. Instinctively, I reached for the back of my head which seemed to be the source of the pain without opening my eyes.

That's when I felt a movement, hands reaching out for mine, and without thinking, I grabbed both of it, eyes shooting open to meet the coal-black orbs of Tate. My realization didn't affect my grip on his wrist. He was dead, anyway. I could break his wrists and he'd just heal up.

"Calm down, Charlie, it's me," he spoke in a soothing manner.

"You're supposed to be comforting?" I squinted up at him; his face was upside down, but I don't think that it was only the strange angle playing tricks on me when I saw a bit of hurt flash in his eyes.

The ache started to withdraw, meaning that instead of feeling like I was wrapped in a blanket of dull, throbbing soreness, it started to feel like my head was stabbed by knives again and again. I wanted the blanket back.

Taking in the surroundings, I quickly comprehended that I was lying on the basement floor, the cold concrete pressing against my lower half and back, but my head laid on something soft and moving. Without a second thought, I sat up, jerking my head away from Tate's legs and crotch. Physically, I regretted the action immediately when the stabbing feeling intensified and a wave of nausea hit me. Mentally, I accounted it as a moral victory. No matter how touchy-feely my father and brother got with _them_ , they were ghosts; ghosts aren't roomies.

"Oh, shit-fuck," I groaned, my voice hoarse and cracking. _How the hell have I got down here?_

"You fainted and fell down the stairs," came the answer for my unasked question from Tate; from very, very close. I was still holding his wrists and pulled him with me when I jerked up, and now he was once again in intimidating closeness to me. Clambering away, I faced him.

"What? I fainted?... Did you push me down, you dick?!"

Tate's eyes widened, as if he was surprised anyone would think he'd be capable of such things. "No! Of course not! I've tried to catch you but I was too slow…"

Thinking it over, the last minute before the fall seemed to be a faded memory, but I did recall a tug on my arm; a dull pain radiated from my left upper-arm. I didn't see anything in the half-light of the basement, but I was sure I'd sport a nice bruise.

"Are you sick?" Tate asked curiously, his head tilted to the side like a puppy. A homicidal puppy.

I didn't want to thank him for not taking advantage of my fainting and kill me; but I decided that this earned him the right to ask questions _and_ be answered. So, I shook my head 'no'. "Just, ah… My powers. They seem to make me a beacon for dark energies, almost like moths flying toward any light… They always make my head hurt; sometimes I get sick, too. This house is like a fucked up assembly center, but down here it's even worse."

"Will you faint again, then?"

"Not likely. It's like… How should I put it for you? Like, when you step into a room or any space and you feel a lot of different smells at once, and after some time, you just don't feel them anymore. Human mind is a curious thing; it makes you forget anything if you get used to it." Like how you can forget about someone being dead when they simply don't look dead. Shaking my head again, I pinched the bridge of my nose before smirking. "Don't be so eager. You won't have my head anywhere close to your junk again."

Tate cracked a dimple-showing smile, and leaned slightly back, leaning back on his arms. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Teenage boys and their hormones. They make them think with their penis even after death.

Remembering what brought me down here in the first place, I took a deep breath and fought my way to a standing position. Tate jumped up to help but I waved him away. "Alright, enough messing around. Chop-chop, get to work!"

"Are you sure? You may have a concussion. Maybe you should see a doctor."

"Did someone mention a doctor?" A man popped up from one of the jumbled corridors, dressed in white from his pants to the cap on his head, except for the thick black rubbish-gloves he had on. He could have been considered good-looking; that is, if you didn't mind the maniac smile on his face as he seized me. "I'm a doctor. Should I help you? Or are you here for the treatment?" he asked, glancing meaningfully over at Tate, who didn't look pleased at all.

"She doesn't need you, go away," the blonde demanded, and, much to my surprise, the doctor (whom I knew must have been Charles Montgomery, the builder) complied, walking away while muttering something about disrespect. Only then have I realized how that feeling of ghostly presence was constant down here – and it didn't come from Tate.

There must have been at least a dozen ghosts around, probably even more, and I didn't know whether it was making me more intrigued or paranoid. I've never met so many ghosts at one place before, not to mention how different they were, which sparked the fire of curiosity burning in my soul. What was so special about this place? And, at the same time, this constant feeling of ghosts also hid them, a huge mess of chaotic shadows, a murky, thick mist of pitch-black aura which they could all blend into.

Suddenly, I felt vulnerable; almost as if something took away my sight. I wouldn't have been able to tell if someone appeared right behind me. But I wasn't about to let them know this, not even Tate; or, _especially_ not him.

"So, there's a lot of you down in the basement, right?" I asked finally, trying to sound casual when actually I was pretty much wary of everything around.

"Yeah, we mostly stayed here or up in the attic when there were… other residents. Your dad said we can go upstairs if we want to, but I guess the others just feel more comfortable here."

 _Let the ghosts roam freely around? Good job, Dad._

"It's not that bad, though," I shrugged, stuffing my hands into my pocket and casually walking around, looking at the stuff scattered here and there mindlessly. "Why didn't you want me down here? You can't scare me, if that's what you were op-"

I was cut short, when Tate suddenly grabbed my arm and yanked me toward him harshly. I liked to think that I was strong; but, no matter how I've tried to struggle, Tate had this deathly grip on me, awakening a rise of fear inside me, appearing as fierce anger on my face.

"What the hell, dude? Let me go!"

"Don't go there," he said, completely ignoring my demand; my fight didn't seem to affect him, either, as his voice was merely more than a whisper.

"Why not?" Like _hell_ was a ghost going to tell me what to do!

"Because he wants to hurt you."

Sneering, I stopped trying to shake Tate's hand off of me; in exchange, seeing as I wasn't going to run toward that dark corner he was pulling me away from, he slowly let me go. "' _He_ ' who?"

"Thaddeus," Tate shrugged, saying the name as if I should have known the answer already. Obviously. "Ronald fixed every hole around the house to keep everything from coming in, including rats. He's… hungry. And you're the only living thing around."

As if on cue, an animalistic, morbid grunt sounded from the dark; focusing my gaze, I could see the dull edges of a drawer or table, and something was definitely moving under that. Suddenly a claw-y hand stroke out of the shadows, groping thin air, and then it withdrew, accompanied by a spiteful hiss.

I scrunched my nose and mouth in disgust.

Tate leaned closer; I was only shorter than him by an inch or two, but it seemed like he suddenly towered over me. "Scared you yet?" His voice made it obvious that he was grinning.

"Twilight-fangirls scared me more than this," I stated, though I was actually worried about Thaddeus. It came back to me by then that this was the name of the Montgomery-baby; but it wasn't exactly he that scared me; it was the fact that different energies were coming from that corner, which I've never encountered before. I couldn't even put my hands on _how_ was it different, exactly.

Tate frowned. "What's Twilight?"

"Believe me: you _don't_ want to know."

Now that I thought about it, Tate seemed to resemble Edward in some ways; all the more reason for me to dislike him.

"Sooo how come you didn't sense he was there with your _magical third eye_?" Tate taunted, nodding toward the corner. My eyes shot up to meet his, gaze roaming over his features, trying to figure out his game. On the surface, he seemed to be simply trying to start a conversation and maybe burn me a bit, because he was a dick. I had this overwhelming feeling, though, that there was something else; there was a reason for him to stick with me, and it surely wasn't my otherwise winning personality.

I cursed myself for letting my guard down around him, even if only for a few minutes. I couldn't make the same mistake again.

"He's different," I stated bluntly. I've learned that you can't lie credibly without letting some truth slip through. "Is he dead, too, or what?"

Tate seemed to ponder for a moment before shrugging, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his torn jeans and then he turned on his heels. "No idea. Your father's room is this way."

I paid one last glance toward Thaddeus' hideaway; a gurgling grumble and sounds of scratching sounded from the gloom, and with a sigh, I followed Tate. The blonde boy led me through a tortuous labyrinth of corridors; smaller and bigger rooms were opening here and there, some sealed by a closed door, some had none. I felt multiple presences, catching a glimpse of a few clothed bodies moving around, but I paid them no mind on purpose. I was sure they knew that I saw them; I had to make sure they also knew they didn't scare me.

Eventually, Tate came to a halt at what I guessed would have been the last room in the basement, given how far we've come. It was basically a dead-end, surrounded by thick concrete walls on both sides, and in front of me was a simple black door, or at least that's how it appeared to be; I had the feeling that it was carved with magical symbols and possibly hinted with salt, too.

I took on the role of initiation and went to open the door, the ghost-boy stepping aside to make me room; fortunately it wasn't closed and after opening it, I've managed to flick on the lights, too. Behind was a simple room of medium size, some book-shelves stuffed with old volumes stood guard pushed to the opposite wall, and between them was a huge map of LA hanging on a nail. There was also a round desk with two chairs in the middle, papers and pens scattered across it, but nothing else. Standing few steps away from the door, I put my hands on my hips as I squinted around, searching for anything particular.

"So, what's your plan?" Tate asked, leaning loosely against the doorway. Usually, I would have avoided answering him, and maybe I would have closed the door, too. But I wanted him and all of the ghosts to know what I've got – both mentally and physically.

"Ever heard of Project Greek Island?" I retorted the question, circling the desk, stroking around the bottom of the board.

"No. What the hell is that?"

"It was a secret government program during the Cold War," I explained in an absent-minded way as I kept searching around. Finished with the table, I went to investigate the map. "In the late '50s, they made a deal with the hotel Greenbrier which built its new wing around that time. What the people didn't know, though, was that underneath the new wing was a classified facility which would have hosted as a secret emergency relocation center in case of a nuclear holocaust, including housing all of the Congress. They also had a broadcast center made which had all these backgrounds to make it look like they were still broadcasting from Washington. Long story short: no visitors above knew about the center; the government agents posed off as the hotel's audiovisual employees. That is, until a reporter in 1992 unveiled it and the bunker was decommissioned."

"Cool," Tate breathed in astonishment. Usually when I got into a subject, people got bored of me, and maybe they didn't tell me straight away to shut up, I could see it written all over their faces. Tate, however, seemed like he was really into it as he sunk into his thoughts with amazement written all over his features. He then raised his head and bore his black irises into mine. "You think your dad has something similar around? A secret passage or room?"

He was smart, I had to admit it; and this also made him all the more dangerous.

"Well, yeah… The Greenbrier is in West Virginia; and the wing which under the facility was built is named 'West Virginia Wing'. He and I, we… liked watching these revealing tv shows together. I remember that this one was his favorite."

There was nothing on the map, so I moved on to the shelves; my father didn't like television and modern stuff, he downright refused to have a laptop, and he always said, that books had more in them than any computer could ever host.

This seemed to be exceptionally true when, pushing some books out of the way, I saw a tiny, kind of ugly-shaped wing scratched into the concrete wall. No wonder Liam didn't see it, it would have went unnoticed by me, too, if I didn't know what to look for. A satisfied grin spread on my face when, after a bit of pushing and pulling, I could lift a thin block of concrete out to reveal a weather-beaten plastic folder inside the nook. I took it out, put the block back, and walked over to the table, my back facing the door and Tate who tried to peek over my shoulder anyway.

I scattered the content on the wooden surface, and the more I recognized, the less I understood. They were mostly a bunch of news articles cut out, copies and torn-out pages of books and a few notes with my father's handwriting. I only spent a minute or two, trying to see the big picture here but it seemed totally incoherent. One article was about how Violet Harmon and her baby brother went missing, I got that, belonged to the history of the house alright; the other one was about an elderly woman found dead thirty miles away, and one about a gas blast. There was even one about a case where Native Americans were protesting for a land that got taken away from them; they said it belonged to them, the state said it belonged to the bank since they couldn't pay their mortgage and stuff.

Two questions popped into my mind. One: what the hell were these supposed to mean? And two: why was my father _hiding_ it? I mean, he was living in a house full of ghosts who were even less natural compared to other supernatural creatures, and in the one room they weren't able to go in to, he hides it away? And he didn't even tell Liam, he just made that shitty comment which only I could-…

 _Oh._

Oh!

That son of a bitch knew I was going to come here, he planned it all along even though I haven't talked to him for years.

"Shit-fucking shit of fuck!" I excluded, slamming my fist on the table, spending a tingling pain into my knuckles. My eyes roamed over the tangle of papers, hoping to burn them with my gaze, but all I managed to get was a derogatory laugh from behind me. Taking a sharp turn, I squinted at the girl standing beside Tate; Hayden, if I recalled well.

"You should pick up some more curses, sweetie," she remarked with a smug expression. "You're starting to bore me."

"Then you should definitely take all that attitude of yours and shove it up your ass," I spat, turning back toward the table and stuffing the papers back to the folder; even if I was angry, I knew my dad had to have a reason to hide it away, so until I find out what it was exactly, I shouldn't run around the house, showing these to every unlucky bastard around.

"Oooh, someone's slaying! Too bad she's failin'." I didn't even know someone could hate a ghost so much; I mean, the others I've known I hated and feared, but something about the humanly side of these ghosts enraged me, for no particular reason. And Hayden even pushed her luck further.

I pretended, in a very adult way, that I haven't heard her and continued packing up the folder. When I stepped to the bookshelf, I pondered for a moment before pushing the plastic between two thick books; I decided I shouldn't show the psycho-girl the hiding place, after all, I could use it later, maybe.

Although not giving an answer was simply a lack of comebacks from me, it did seem to get on the better side of Hayden. It was her turn to throw a brick at me.

"What's with all the biting, hm, hunter-girl?" she grinned, leaning to the corridor's wall opposite of Tate who didn't look pleased with her presence, judging from the furrow of his brows and how his cross of his arms stiffened. Hayden's gaze flicked to Tate before returning to me. "Tatie-boy confessed to you yet? I mean, that's the way it goes around here… Just ask little Vi."

I raised an eyebrow in confusion, not exactly knowing what was she referring to, but before I could say anything, Tate pushed himself from the doorframe, showing Hayden away.

"Go away, Hayden!" he growled, teeth bared like an attack dog; for some demented reason, I felt a wave of relief flood over me.

Nice people poked at my side all the time; I believed in the saying, everyone has darkness in them, some more than usual, and from my experience, the sweetest smiles hid the most filth underneath. Seeing that darkness emerge from below Tate's boy-next-door attitude and the otherworldly energies getting immense for a moment around him, I confirmed my theory, once again: ghosts aren't roomies. The fact, that someone who seemed nice, but I believed was actually a homicidal maniac tiptoeing closer to verifying my hypothesis with his sudden moodiness was making me calm, actually proved my uncle right: I probably needed professional help. Too bad I didn't care.

"So that's all you need, huh?" I asked him after Hayden disappeared with a last smug glance over me. Tate looked at where she was only a moment ago before turning to me with softened but questioning eyes. "You say 'go away', and every ghost around here actually goes away?"

"Yeah, pretty much," he agreed, nodding slowly, his hands back in his pocket once again. "Why, the others you've met, they didn't?"

Somehow I doubted that neither my dad nor Liam told him about how the other ghosts acted; I suspected he just wanted to talk, but I answered, anyway. Learning about that go away trick was nice; I hoped that by not biting his head off every time he says good morning I might get more of that insider stuff.

"Nah. But waving an iron bar through them usually did the trick for me."

I looked at my watch, and realized I spent more time surfing online and unconscious after falling down the stairs than how I imagined. Liam was supposed to be home pretty soon, I guessed, so I headed to the door. When I walked past Tate, he stood to the side only so much that my hand brushed against his. For a moment, I wondered if he did that on purpose; the next moment, my thought were wrapped around something entirely different as I seized him up good with narrowed eyes.

It didn't go unnoticed by Tate, of course, and he tilted his head with a lazy smile, asking, "What?"

"I'm musing on what would happen if I tried to wave an iron bar through you."

Tate chuckled. "You'd hit me, I guess."

"All the more reason I should try it," I nodded, heading forward on the corridor, glancing into every dark room. "Where's n iron bar when a girl needs it?"

"Why do you insist on hitting me so much?" he asked curiously, following me silently as I made my way upstairs.

Out of that thick fog of ghosts, some appeared in their material body for a few moments as I passed by their hiding places, and this time, I looked them right in the face. There was Hayden, of course, rocking back and forth in a chair, and a young guy leaning to the wall next to her. In the next room, two nurses stood by a tub like they just came from a shooting of a rethinking of The Ring; the room after that seemed empty but the smell of smoke and burning flesh choked me for a moment. Thaddeus was still hiding under that table; a part of me wanted to see how he looked, the other was glad for the shadows.

"Nothing personal, it's for… science. Scientifical reasons, you know." And once again, it wasn't a lie; as much as Tate, the Friendly Ghost and his friends made me feel violated, their being intrigued me, too.

Why were they different? How much did they resemble ghosts, if at all? So far they had nothing in common, except for the fact they were dead. But were they? Dead, I mean. Not in the traditional meaning of the word, I supposed; did it mean they were a new type of supernatural? After all, wendigos were sort of dead, sort of alive as well, not to mention they used to be humans. Were those who seemed ghosts anything alike living people? Why were they acting a certain way? Did they actually think like the living? Feel so? They had a physical body, did that mean they felt what happened to it?

A sudden urge of curiosity led me to act as I hastily flicked Tate on the neck. He flinched away, his hand going up to knead the area.

"What the fuck, Charlie?" he yelped, dark eyes going big and round in disbelief.

"Science, dude. Science. So did you feel anything?"

"You flicked me, I felt that," he said, furrowing his brows and shaking his head.

My eyes watched his face, looking for clues of lies, while I asked sharply," You felt that, or you know you're supposed to feel that so you say so, but actually just recall what it used to feel like when you weren't dead?"

Tate's head snapped at that, and for a moment, I wondered if I took it too far and will be punished for letting my guard down, once again. Something did change in the way his eyes flashed in the dim light of the basement; it wasn't anger, but still I felt self-conscious about walking up the stairs, given I've fallen down before already, and he might or might've not pushed me.

He was confused. Why?

"I… I don't… What do you mean?" I stepped out to the light while he was still standing on the stairs, and it struck to me how much his irises resembled the gloom behind him, all soft obscurity. His mind was spinning his ass off, somehow I was sure of that; yet another new thing about ghosts. Seemed like the residents around here wouldn't cease to amaze me. What triggered his sudden baffledness? What was he thinking about?

I couldn't answer him nor ask a question myself, as a loud, rapid knock came from the front door. My and Tate's head snapped to that direction by instinct, only to hear Moira going for it. When I turned back, the blonde boy was nowhere to be seen.

"Ghosts. In the end, they always leave you," I mumbled, sure that some of them could hear me. I felt a presence but ignored it; the sounds of a heating argument caught my attention as I made my way to the front entrance. As I looked at the decoration as I passed by them, I noted how they surely must have belonged to the previous residents. My dad would have never hung a huge painting of trees on the wall, ever.

"I repeat: you're not welcomed here, ma'am," Moira deadpanned to whomever was standing at the porch, her face unreadable but annoyance clearly ringing from her voice.

"And I repeat, you one-eyed wench, you can't stop me." I didn't recognize the voice, but disliked to whomever it belonged to, anyway; it was deep and croaky, a sign of smoking which I resented. My jaw clenched as I stepped next to the red-headed woman.

"But I can," I declared sharply. So I might've not trusted Moira since she was a ghost, but she was a ghostmaid at the house I was currently staying at and she made a mean coffee, so no one had the right to speak like this to her. The mysterious woman looked startled by my sudden appearance, but her angry resting bitch-face melted off of her after a mere moment, taken over by a sickeningly sweet expression which was clearly forced. She looked like a cross between a burn-out pornstar and a character from The Stepford Wives.

"Well, good day, dear. You are Miss Blake, I imagine?"

"Yes," I shot a short answer at her which was clearly much less than what she was expecting. I didn't like her; which meant I had no intention of talking to her. She blinked at me, waiting for me to speak.

"I'm Constance, Constance Langdon," she said finally," I live next door, and… oh, but you know I'm not here to welcome my new neighbor, you seem like a smart girl to me."

I had no idea what she was doing here. "Sure."

She leaned forward a bit, as if she was about to share a secret. "Is it true? Is it true what they said?"

The way she fidgeted haphazardly with the chain of her purse didn't go unnoticed by me; she was clearly a bit neurotic, if not altogether. "I don't know what you're refferi…"

"You can do it, can't you?" she cut in, clearly excited. I liked her less and less, which was a nice surprise, I usually had an amount of dislike toward someone and it stayed that way, changing level was new, even if it meant even more resentment. I arched a brow. "You can bring them back? They can be alive again? "

She sounded hopeful and secretive. I felt like hiding behind the door so she couldn't see me. Who was she? How did she know about my father's plans? How did she know who I was? When people knew seemingly a lot bout you and you had no idea what relations they had to your life, it usually resulted in distrust and a wary feeling of hesitancy. It resulted in downright paranoia for me.

"I'm sorry, I can't help you, lady," I said, taking the place beside the doorknob from Moira. I wasn't sure she'd slap the door in her face if need to be.

"I mean no harm, darling, no need to worry," she cracked a laugh, which was nearly as humorless as me. She spoke as if we were old friends; she was old alright, possibly over sixty, but she sure as hell wasn't my friend. "I merely have, so to say, personal interest in the subject, and would very much like to ask if I can help with anything to contribute to your success."

"Look, Mrs. Langdon…"

"Please! Constance."

"Ahem, sure. So, Constance, let me be clear: whatever you know or you don't know, whatever interest you may possess in whatever goes around here? That's none of your business. And it's not mine, either." Her face fell at that. I pulled up my shoulders, pushing the door an inch closer to closed. "Can I help you with anything else or…?"

She looked at her feet for a moment, dark irises going left to right and to the left again, as she tried to think of the good answer to get what she actually came here for.

"I'm sorry, I think you misunderstood me…"

"Please, leave, _Constance_."

That finally broke that dumb charade she was posing for, anger sweeping through her wrinkles as she spoke. "Look, little girl, you have no right to…"

"Mrs. Langdon?" Liam's voice was like a saving grace falling from the sky from me; I was starting to get angry, and although I usually preferred reasonable acting, I might've had punched her in the face for telling me what to do.

My newest friend turned around to reveal Liam walking up to the house, his face sporting an emotion I never thought he had: annoyance.

"Little darling," Constance called for him in the honeyed voice she used for me in the beginning. "I thought you weren't home…"

"I'm home now," Liam said, walking up the stairs to stand by her; he was the taller out of the two, but I wasn't sure who was the more determined. "And Dad's already told you you're not welcome here. Go away."

"I'm not one of those… ghosts!" she hissed, saying the last word like a curse.

"Be glad and be gone." With these last words, I stepped aside and after Liam came in, I closed the door, not minding how Constance was just about to say something. Liam, Moira and me watched as she stood before the closed door for a few moments before turning around and walking away, her high heels pattering on the pavement.

"Bitch," I muttered, a sigh of relief leaving my lips. My brother shook his head and pinched his nose, dropping his schoolbag on the floor.

"That was Constance Langdon," he said, exasperated. "She lives in the next house; she's also Tate's mother, and… well, she has had a complicated history with the house and everyone who lives here."

"I suppose she has a complicated history with you and Dad as well?"

Liam nodded. "She knows about, you know, the ghosts, and somehow also about who we are and what we do. Dad said she must have a ghost around here who tells her everything she needs."

"Is it Tate?" I asked, suddenly feeling even less like trusting the boy than before. Tate was the one coming after me, but I also found something in him which led me to tell him more than I probably should have; although it wasn't anything confidential, I still didn't want that weird Southern Psychopath of a Lady to know about it, and since Tate was her son (I remembered what I read about her now), it seemed only fair he'd be her built-in spy, and it would also explain why he was following me around so eagerly.

But Liam shook his head quite assuredly. "No, of course not! Tate and her, they… Well, it's really not up to me to tell anyone, but they have a difficult relationship." He almost laughed when saying 'difficult', so it wasn't hard to imagine what he meant. "But she still acts like this house belongs to her, and she keeps coming back here, poking her nose around."

"Sooo… she's a bitch," I concluded quite bluntly. At that, Liam laughed.

"Yeah, I'm sure there are some who would agree with you…" He suddenly looked at Moira who had this unreadable expression on her face as she turned around and walked back to the kitchen. I guessed they had a difficult relationship as well; how Moira died was never clear to me, anyway, there were only some articles on her disappearing and how she was a maid here, under the Langdon's. Some speculated she ran away with Constance's husband, but seeing how she was here, I supposed she didn't quite had the chance to run off with anyone. A grotesque interest awoke in me as I thought more about her; would she be offended if I asked her how she died? Can a ghost be offended?

The ghosts of this house truly started to fascinate me.

I was still thinking about whether or not I should test the limits of these new kind of ghosts when night fell upon LA. My afternoon went on without any particular success of figuring out where our father headed; I didn't go back to the room in the basement, either, and I mostly spent the time on the couch with Liam who asked a tons of questions about what I did in the past years.

The kitchen was empty and quiet as I sat by the counter and sipped my tea; only the lights above the stove were switched on, and they were enough for me. I have, after all, left the kid years behind me a long time ago, when I used to switch all the lights up, as if that would save me. I was stupid; not a single light bulb could save me. And, if I really thought about it, no one could save anyone in this world; even if you do save someone, you do it for yourself, not them. I was doing this for myself, too, right? So I wouldn't feel like I left my little brother in a mess; I set out to save my dad so I could leave them again, with a clear conscious. I was horrible; and, somehow, that felt right in this house.

"Go ahead, show yourself," I mumbled loud enough so the ghost lingering around, whoever they were, heard my words. I wasn't sure it worked until a pair of hands appeared in the corner of my eye, leaning casually against the counter. They were slim and slender, and as I turned toward their owner, I saw a young girl one would call pretty if it wasn't for her emotionless eyes. I recognized her. "You're Violet, right?"

She nodded. "And you're Charlotte."

"At your service. Do you want some tea or something?" Were they able to drink and eat, anyway? I wanted to find out, but Violet seemed to ignore my question. "So you didn't get to run away, either, huh?"

"No," she snorted, cracking a smile with no real emotion behind it. "But I should've. When I still had the chance… Is that even an option? Does anyone ever offer you running away as a possibility?"

"Is it an option? Yes. Is it a solution? Nope. So, whatever made you seek out my glorified company?" Violet, although she seemed a bit spooky with those big kitty cat eyes of her which lacked any emotion, was still better than Hayden who practically had _crazy_ flickering in hers, like a billboard sign.

"I should have run away," she repeated sternly. "I should have, but I didn't, and it's because of Tate. I am dead because of Tate, because of this house, because all this crap."

"So you came here to warn me?" I asked her, amused how everyone here thought I didn't know what I was getting into. Most likely, they couldn't imagine the life we've had, what we've faced already, and how, although this was different, it wasn't unusual to me.

Violet nodded firmly, something flashed in her light eyes finally – was it compassion? "Don't trust them, not even Moira, and especially not Tate. They are going to kill you. Believe me."

An unhappy smile crept upon my face upon hearing her words. "And why should I believe your words, then?"

"You don't have to if you don't wanna," she shrugged carelessly, looking like the teenager she was. How old was she? Sixteen? I would've said she was too young to be dead but that's not how the world worked as far as I was concerned. "I just wanted to let you know; it someone had warned me when I moved in, I'd probably be alive still, going to a university, getting a real boyfriend, a marriage, kids, a family… And now I won't have any."

"You can, still," I pointed out, suppressing a yawn. "If my father succeeds, that is."

I didn't believe in it, and wasn't going to feed her or any other around here with faithless hopes. If that's what my dad opted for, that was his problem, but I wasn't going to take a part in it, no matter how much he wanted.

"I don't think I want to," she said quietly, staring at the floor, but more likely, staring into nothing. "I've had enough taste of the real world."

Now, that was something I could relate to. Happy are the blind ones, who don't see what really awaits them outside, right? And still, from a girl who merely had anything outside this house for years, it didn't seem quite right.

"How did you die, Violet?" My question rang into the silence, making me rethink twice if I should've asked it in the first place. She didn't throw a tantrum, though; quite the opposite, Violet remained calm, sneering as she grinned.

"Don't let any of them fool you. Constance is a bigger problem than how she seems, and Hayden isn't the only crazy one around here, either. The Devil is real; and he can be beautiful." She said the last part as if she was reciting from something, but before I had the chance of asking where, she was gone.

I sipped my tea in heavy silence.

* * *

 **Hope you've enjoyed it! Leave a review so I'd know if you want me to continue, or what you'd like to see in the further chapters. :)**


	4. Chapter Four - Useless Tuesdays

_**Useless Tuesdays**_

 **May 30, 2016.  
** _ **Murder House, Los Angeles**_

Tuesdays were usually numb in all respect; nothing particular happened at University, at home, nor at work, and usually no good movies were on TV, either. I shouldn't have been surprised to find out that even at the infamous Murder House, Tuesdays were boring and gave me even less reason to understand Garfield's hatred toward Mondays. Mondays at least served a purpose; they were the beginning of the week, but Tuesdays?! Damn!

I spent the whole day skimming through Dad's folder I found yesterday; this time behind closed doors, although Tate offered immediately after I woke up that he'd help me. A refusal was what he got. Violet's warning kept me awake for half of the night, not because I was afraid but because it made me think about the relations between the ghosts around here. She clearly blamed Tate for her death; that sounded a lot like the ghosts we've met on the road. Most spirits stayed not only because they had unfinished business to attend to, but also out of revenge; usually, they were all murdered or killed out of human inadvertency.

Violet, however, didn't seem quite vengeful; the opposite, actually, she seemed to have accepted the fact that Tate was the reason she died, according to her. Of course, I had no idea what she meant, although I had a few guesses; the news could only tell you so much, beyond that, everyone was blind to what happened during the murders. What was different from other murders was, though, that I could ask the victims – and possibly, even the murderers.

And that's exactly what I was going to do.

After I've read every paper once or twice (the notes meant nothing to me, they were like a hasty scrabble of a student, a few words to be highlighted which were incomprehensible for anyone outside the writer – words like "spirit", "ghost", "ley" and "grace" mixed with "conception", "world beyond" and "portal"), I gave up. They meant something, for sure, but I didn't know what, and I didn't have enough time to make up my own research. I was also sure that it was in connection to his agenda – not the immediate case he was working on. I didn't want to have anything to do with his obsession to bring back Mom. She was dead – and he couldn't do anything to reverse it.

I gave a call to Jack and Camille; they were a married pair of hunters whom we met back in Washington, and after their first baby was born, they gave up actual hunting and became informants. Currently, they weren't home as their voicemail answered, so I left them a message to call me back.

Now, that work was done for a while, at least, I could do some research of my own: the house and its ghosts were nudging me more than a nerve-racking eight-years-old boy, and I knew this feeling would continue if I don't try to find the answers. So, after I put everything back to its place, I headed upstairs, to the kitchen, more specifically, as it was past noon already.

Moira was cleaning the living room, and I was glad for it; I still had a hard time trusting her, so I'd rather make my lunch myself. Unfortunately, my determination didn't come with cooking skills, so I settled for a sandwich.

As I sat by the counter, munching, my eyes fell to a notepad and a pen, possibly belonging to Liam. After a short period of thinking, I pulled them closer and started tapping the pen against the page. To understand the house, I should've perhaps known exactly what I stood against, to see the extent of deathly danger I was right in the middle of.

 **Nora & Charles Montgomery  
Year of death: 1926  
Cause of death: suicide / murder (Nora)**

I didn't write Thaddeus there on purpose – after all, no one really knew if he was alive or dead.

 **Gladys Salazar & Maria Finkelstein  
Year of death: 1968  
Cause of death: murder**

The pen went down and then I withdrew it, as I wasn't sure – between the Montgomerys and Franklin's murders almost forty years went on without much problem. Maybe someone did die in here, only the newspapers didn't know about it? I couldn't be sure, so there was only one option, really, to call for aid.

"Tate!" I called for him sounding like an idiot in the middle of the kitchen. A small dot of ketchup fell out of my sandwich as I looked up at the ceiling, almost expecting the ghost-boy to melt out of there like Slimer from Ghostbusters. "Tate!"

"I knew you'd need me," he said, walking in from the corridor like a normal person. As soon as I saw the smug grin on his face I regretted not calling for someone else instead. Seeing how I rolled my eyes, he chuckled and sat down next to me. "Why did you call?"

"You know a lot about the house, right?"

"I guess," he mused, shrugging. Tate looked a lot less interested in my question than in the muffins sitting on the counter.

"Can you even eat that?" I asked, a bit surprised, when he took one.

Tate froze mid-bite for a moment before grinning again.

"If you think I'm fat you can just tell me, you know," he said.

A sigh and another eye-roll later, which totally hid my laughter about to burst, I added, "That's not what I meant, and you know it. You don't have any physical cravings… Right? I mean, you're dead, Tate."

The way Tate's eyes bore into mine made me become motionless. Once again, it must've had something to do with the fact that his irises resembled black holes, endless pitch-black darkness which held my gaze captive. He was sitting across the windows, so the outside lights lit up his face enough to make me able to see his pupils which only intensified the realization that he was looking at me; into me? I saw something there – someone on the other side of Tate's eyes – what I shouldn't have, not with a ghost. They were supposed to be only a memory of their humanly being.

It was only a moment, but the intensity made it seem much longer. I felt nervous after that.

"I must be, huh?" he asked slowly, his eyebrow knitted and mouth slightly open as he thought hard about something. He stayed like that for a bit before he shrugged and stuffed half of the muffin into his mouth. "Dunno. We still eat and drink sometimes, I guess; I do, anyway."

"That's interesting," I mumbled, stroking my chin, only to leave a trace of ketchup there. I cleaned it off hastily. "Do you, like, digest it as well? Like, you know, do you have to use the bathroom?"

Tate scrunched his nose and shook his head with a little laugh. "Did you call me here to talk about bowel movements?"

"No. I called you here to talk about murders."

"Oh. That's sick, girl," he laughed.

"Are bowel movements better?" I asked with raised brows. "Look, that's not important. I just want to know every ghost in this house; when and how they died, too. Can you do that?"

Tate shrugged before looking at me, a sudden eager hopefulness in his eyes and voice. "Why do you need it? Are you trying to find out why we're here? To help us?"

"Look, dude, I'm just… curious, alright?" I sighed as I rubbed my temple. Taking another bite from my sandwich, I continued on. "So, after the Montgomerys… The first ones to be killed here were Gladys and Maria?" Tate nodded firmly. "Are you sure about that? No one died here between 1926 and 1968?"

He nodded again. "Not enough ghosts around for you already?" he beamed. I ignored Tate's comment.

"Alright. So, after that?"

"The twins," he said, his gaze going up to the ceiling. "Troy and Bryan. Nasty little pre-pubescent bastards. Did they give you your sunglasses back yet?"

My hand slapped on the counter. "That was them?!" Unlike how my eyes went wide, Tate seemed to find that funny as he chuckled. "Those sons of bitches… Just wait until I get them."

"I told them to give it back," Tate said, either to let me see that he did something for my cause or to prevent any rage from my part for not hindering their little prank.

"Whatever." They were dead, anyway; it couldn't get any worse for them, right? I downed the rest of my sandwich and took my pen again. "So, when did they die?"

"I dunno."

"You're so helpful."

Tate shook his head with a small smile. "I don't even know what year is it… I was still very young, around one, I guess."

"1978," I nodded. I already knew when they died, I was merely curious if Tate was going to be honest with answering. He seemed to be, though. "How did they die?"

"Thaddeus got 'em."

I frowned at that, not out of surprise or astonishment, rather to express my empathy toward them; I only saw that monster's claws but that still gave me a good idea about the rest of it. To be killed by that monstrosity, devoured… That was something I wouldn't expose my enemies to, either, not to mention a couple of young boys. This was the part that sucked in being a hunter, well, one of the many – you started to see the world as it was, cruel and full of mud, to the young as well as to the old.

My chest, once again heavy with the thoughts of misery and death, heaved a sigh as I wrote the new information down, too.

 **Troy & Bryan  
** _ **Year of death: 1978  
Cause of death: murder (Thaddeus)**_

"When did you move in?"

"Some time after that," Tate said, knocking the ring on his thumb to the counter carelessly. He then grinned suddenly, with obvious bitterness behind it. "The house got cheap because of the twins, and my father bought it… But it'd seem like he didn't like it here, since he left a few years after."

I didn't quite know how I should've reacted to that. Actual desolation dripped from his words, something I wasn't used to. Could it be that a ghost was such good of an actor? Could he have been lying to me?

"I'm sorry," I murmured awkwardly.

"It's all right," the blonde boy shrugged. "The house is cool. It could've been my mother he hated. I get that. Why do you hate your father?"

His question caught me unarmed, so I looked up at him in surprise. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I'm just curious," he said; as it looked like, Tate didn't feel bad about the sudden change of subject. After all, he changed it. "My mom is a bitch, I have a reason to hate her, but what did your father do?"

A sudden wave of anger pulsed through my veins. How could he be so insolent to just ask something like that?! Once again, his otherwise pretty nose (how can a nose be pretty? But Tate's _everything_ was pretty) was poking around stuff he had no authority to. _Don't trust them_ ; I heard Violet say, _especially not Tate_.

Tate was… nothing like I've ever met. I couldn't put my hand on what level was he different, exactly, but supposedly multiple, and only one of them was the fact that he was dead and he was a new kind of ghost. I couldn't understand why he was so curious about me, as if he wanted to befriend me. No one ever did that on purpose; not if they knew about my family. What was his game?

"That's none of your business," I frowned, grouchily. Maybe he did not meant any harm by asking about my relation to Dad, but every time someone asked something personal about me, I felt attacked immediately – after all, what other reason could he have to ask such questions if he didn't want to harm me or my family through what he learns?

Tate, however, seemed innocent as ever as he blinked at me with those huge doe eyes of his. I had to tear away my eyes from him before I'd get swallowed by him again; instead, I started to draw doodles on the margin. Although we were silent, my thoughts were roaming with questions, mostly about the blonde ghost boy sitting next to me. I was still swimming deep in a mixture of desperate uncertainty, anger and alarm when a hand reached for mine, cold, slender fingers locking around mine, patting them.

My instinct was to withdraw my hand as fast as I can, but I willed myself and looked at Tate instead.

"I'm sorry, Charlie," he pleaded softly, concern on his face. "I didn't mean to be rude… I was just, you know, trying to get to know you."

Did he really say that?

I think he did.

"No offense. I just don't share my stuff with ghosts, or anyone, as a matter of fact." The meaningful nod Tate gave made me bite into my lips in order to stop words from coming out, but eventually, that wasn't enough. "He was just… never a father to me; not the one I needed, anyway. That's all you should know. He's my father and I can never break that bond, of course I help find him, but I don't want to get involved with any of… this."

How is it, he was just so easy to talk to?

Tate asked, with his head tilted and brows furrowed, "Do you really want to go back to the university?"

And I had no real answer.

"I have to go back," I answered though, quite confidently. It wasn't a lie, at least. "I'm actually supposed to be sick now, or at least that's what I told to my friend, but I can't play that card for forever. I might lose the financial support, if I don't go back soon, and I obviously have no money to pay the tuition fee… I mean, have you seen the piece of crap car I drive?"

"You drive an Audi 100, all the narcissistic, pompous twats used to drive that."

"Yeah, in 1994, Tate," I sighed with a raised eyebrow. "That kind of makes it more than twenty years old, and it's officially older than me. I wasn't even born yet."

"1994 was a long time ago, huh?" Tate asked, looking at me for approval. I wasn't going to lie, it was far back, so I nodded. He gave a snorting sound. "Seems like yesterday."

"From a certain point of view, it was, for you," I raised my shoulders. The situation was almost funny; if Tate hadn't committed what he did, he'd be almost forty years old by now, and yet, here he was, still the mind and body of a teenager. _Forever young_ wasn't as happy and full of sunshine as nowadays' singers sing it, though.

I cleared my throat to chase away the previous thoughts and turned back to the counter as I've faced Tate during our side-wrecked conversation.

"So… Moira went missing in 1983 according to the articles, and seeing how she's still the same age, I suppose she died the same year. Do you know how?"

"Nope. I was only six."

 **Moira O'Hara  
** _ **Year of death: 1983 (?)  
Cause of death: ?**_

My pen stopped mid-air before it could've went on writing automatically. According to my research, one of the next deaths was Tate's himself. How was he going to react to that?

"The Harvey's came after that," Tate spoke up, seemingly unbothered. He was talking about accepted facts, like a boring documentary. "Lorraine set herself and her two daughters on fire, because her husband was fucking my mother. She'd have done anything to get back here ever since she lost it," he snickered, humorless. "After that, Constance got Larry to murder my brother, Beau, in the attic, because he didn't fit into her perfect little idealistic family. If SWAT wouldn't have shot me, she might have done it herself after she realized finally, that I'd never be her perfect son."

There was a mixture of bitterness, anger and painful acceptance in his voice as he spoke, picking the skin of his fingers. The amount of information he gave was satisfying but it also left me with the feeling I should say something, after all, Tate looked so miserable and real… But I had no clue what was appropriate or what wouldn't trigger an unwanted emotional outburst of Tate. What can anyone say to that?

"1994 was quite a year, huh?" I said finally with an unsure grimace.

 **Lorraine, Margaret & Angela Harvey  
** _ **Year of death: 1994  
Cause of death: murder-suicide (Lorraine)**_

 **Beau Langdon  
** _ **Year of death: 1994  
Cause of death: murder (Larry Harvey)**_

 **Tate Langdon  
** _ **Year of death: 1994  
Cause of death: shot by SWAT**_

Tate peeked over to my notes with interest flaring in his eyes. "You didn't write _murder_ to my death."

His question was evident, and I even surprised myself with the long fumbling seconds I took to find the right words. Somehow I didn't want to _offend_ him.

"That wasn't murder… They didn't want to kill you, Tate, they were only doing their jobs."

"You think they didn't want me dead? After all I've done, set someone on fire and kill fifteen innocent kids in my high school?" The cheery undertone was long gone by now, rather, his voice bore something fierce, and yet something unsure. He wasn't only toying with his question, and it wasn't only meant for me but also himself. Tate looked away from me, staring at his hands; and all I could do was wonder how his sulky behavior and fallen shoulders was enough to make me feel empathic toward him.

"Why did you do it, Tate?" I asked slowly, shaking my head in disbelief. These ghosts awoke an unhealthy curiosity in me, but Tate was even worse, since he made efforts to talk to me and act as if he was still alive. He was something different, something new and odd and bipolar, who didn't cease to surprise me; I had to realize I _wanted_ to understand him.

His voice was barely a whisper. " I don't know," he murmured. "I don't remember. " He sounded genuine, but I wasn't sure if I could trust my ears or feelings. Suddenly he looked up at me, with pleading eyes and a sorrowful frown his face. He reminded me of a frightened child. "Why did I do that?"

I hesitated, not sure if he was actually talking to me. "Tate, I don't…"

"Could've the house done that to me? Can I be cursed?" he kept going on. "Those voices in my head, they told me to do things, that I… "Tate shook his head, staring with wide eyes. He didn't give me details, and perhaps it was for the best. "Is that a thing? Can a cursed house do this?"

"I guess so, yes… Sometimes dark energies get stuck in one place for various reasons, like witches or demons, and fuck people up," I answered, carefully thinking over every little word twice and stuffing as much calmness into my voice as I could muster. Tate's blonde eyebrows knotted together dispiritedly.

"It must have been the house… and the coke. It was stupid, I know that now, and I swear, if I could change the past, I would!" His hands reached out for mine, and this time, I didn't even try to pull my hands away. I was still pretty much in shock, and my mind couldn't decide what I should do with the so suddenly formed situation. "Can a curse like this be lifted, reversed?"

"Perhaps. Maybe… Look, I don't know, Tate." A distressed sigh escaped my lips as I combed my fingers through my dark curls. Anxiety was something I was familiar with, given my borderline paranoia, but this was a different form of it; it didn't derive from fear but rather the fact that Tate seemingly wanted, _needed_ me to help him, to give answer whereas I had none. Just like with my father's disappearance, I had no clue what I was doing, yet everyone expected me to know things, and it strained my body and mind to a limit where I wanted to be mad and to yell, but at the same time I just wanted to cry in a corner and eat ice cream. Why did it have to be so difficult?

"I want to get rid of this," Tate said, his grip on my hands tightening as his dark orbs watered. "I want to be different, but I can't do it alone, Charlie! And I don't even know how, and… I did such horrible things, I can't make up for it, but I want to help you, so maybe through you, we can all be free."

To say I was at a loss of words would be an understatement. Much to my surprise, though, the Universe decided it had dumped enough shit on me already, so I'd be in for a treat – which ultimately meant that my phone started to ring. It startled me and I winced but reached for it instantly as I just about jumped up and made it to the front door. I had to get up and walk, to be away from Tate, because he awoke things in me I wasn't ready to face yet.

"Yes?" I opened the front door hastily, almost ready to talk even to a insurance agent or Jehovah's Witnesses as long as it served as an excuse for me. Tate was about to cry when I left him at the counter, and I was pretty sure I'd have joined him.

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" Reese's voice shrieked into my ears with such volume I almost dropped the phone. I was ready to talk to a phone agent, but wasn't ready for this conversation so I almost did a turn tail until I realized that would take me to another problem, so I started to pace around the pavement.

"Look, Reese, I can explain, alright?"

"You are damn well going to!" he yelled but at a less deafening way before sighing; I could imagine him pinching his nose bridge. "Do you even know what I felt when I called your friend, the, ah, pretty blonde chick…"

"Angela, her name is Angela," I grumbled, and the slight disgust I felt about the fact that my uncle generally found my friend hot almost made me forget about my other problems.

"Yes, her. I called her because you didn't come home yesterday like you said you would, and do you know what she told me? That you were never freaking there in the first place! You lied to me!"

"I know, I'm sorry," I sighed heavily, but Reese wasn't finished yet.

"And do you know whom else you've lied to? Angela, saying you were sick or something and that's the reason you weren't at the university, either!" I felt multiple pairs of eyes on me, both from the house behind me, and also from the neighbor. I didn't pay attention to the first one, but the second one I found more of a problem so I pretended to be a good suburban girl, not some almost teenaged runaway, and started walking toward the mailbox. "You know what, Lotte? I get it, you're nineteen and you have your own secrets, really, I get it, but if it was some boy you're leaving all of us so suddenly, I'd get that, I did stupid things, too, when I was younger, and - oh, who am I kidding, I still do them, but it's not like that, is it? Why did you lie to us and leave? Where are you?"

Reese was rambling and jabbering like an idiot whenever he was worked up, and it'd seem he was really worked up. Truth to be told, I did not expect to be here more than a day or two, and I hoped I'd be able to come up with some explanation by then but it slipped my mind, I guess. Now, I had to think quickly; I couldn't tell him the truth, I was sure about that, because I had no idea what would happen if he'd find out that Dad's missing, and this whole house…

My uncle always had a strained relationship with Dad, they didn't get along well, not since Mom, his older sister died; Reese said what Dad gave us was never Mom's intention, and that both him and Mom despised hunters' life. That was the main reason he didn't even think twice about taking me in when I appeared in front of his door one day almost four years ago. I owed him a lot. And if I'd have told him where I was and what I was doing there, he'd have come.

"I can't tell you," I said finally.

Silence.

"It's just… something I have to do on my own." Only minutes ago I was mentally hissing and fussing about having everything laid upon me, but now that I actually had a chance of requiring real help from my uncle, I backed out. Not even backed, more like chickened, because I was afraid of what would happen if he'd come to the Murder House. "Family stuff… Liam needs me."

Another, seemingly lifetime spanned silence later, Reese took a deep breath. "Are you safe?"

Nothing was ever safe; even less when you were staying at a place like the Murder House.

"Yes. I'm not doing anything dangerous, I swear." Well, I wasn't doing anything yet.

"Why couldn't you just tell me?" This time I was the one sighing; Reese's voice was considerably lighter, and I felt a rush of relief.

"Would you have let me go without joining me?" I asked, opening the mailbox and taking out a few letters.

"Well… does following you count?"

"Nope."

"Than no."

"That's why I couldn't tell you," I said, almost laughing.

That's when I actually made the effort to look up, at the next house, only to find Constance in all her Southern Wife glory, laughing – actually laughing – with a little boy who seemed to be around four years old, hair so light blonde it almost seemed white. He was petting a little dog – one of those terrible terriers with the little bow in their fur – and running after it; the dog frisked its tail and barked happily. I frowned. It wasn't the scene itself that filled me with a strange feeling; rather, the boy had something radiating from him, something I've never seen before; he didn't have a colorful aura-like thing, like living people, but it wasn't grey or black, either, like ghosts and demons and other supernatural creatures. His was the same color as his hair, almost white. I've never seen anything like it. What the hell…?

"… Charlie?" I heard Reese call my name urgently, and I was sure I must've blacked out while I was watching and I didn't hear anything my uncle said.

"Yeah, sorry, I'm here… What was that?"

Reese laughed, but I knew his question was serious. "You know you can call me any time, right? If you were to do anything crazy, may you remember that your good ol' uncle is me, and whatever you may do, I've done worse. Much worse."

"I know that, and I'm not planning to do anything stupid or unnecessarily brave, I swear."

"So, how's Liam? Is he alright?"

"Yeah, of course. He's actually in school now, and I guess he's about to have a girlfriend."

"That's great! I knew he'd take after me. Your Dad was never a charmer, I never quite got what your Mom saw in him… But that may be because at the time I was only twelve. What's he doing now?"

That was the question I feared. "Difficult," I said diplomatically. It wasn't a lie, after all, and Reese knew I had a mismatch with him about his obsession about bringing Mom back. I talked to Reese for a few more minutes, swearing again and again that I'm good and that I'll call him soon.

By the time I slid my phone back into my pocket, I was standing at the porch, and with a sigh, I looked to the side only to realize I was being watched. The little boy Constance was playing with stared at me with his huge, unrealistically blue eyes, hugging the dog who was quite happy for the closeness. For a long moment, we just looked at each other; then, suddenly, he smiled and waved with his free hand. By instinct, I waved back but couldn't suppress the shiver that ran down my spine. This kid was odd. And where did Constance get him, anyway?

What I did not see or hear, though, was how in the exact moment I closed the door, the dog's neck broke with a sickening crack.

"So, what's up with that kid?" I asked Tate. It was already past 10PM, and we were sitting on the floor of my bedroom floor, looking through my CDs. Apparently, Tate liked My Chemical Romance and asked if I have anything alike; and given how being on the better side of him could be beneficial, I've realized, I agreed to give him some more. It must've sucked to be in a house for twenty years with nothing to do all day, but hey, it's not called being cursed for nothing.

"What kid?" he asked with a frown, which could have been a sign of general incomprehension as well as not liking Panic!At The Disco whose CD's back he was currently eyeing.

"Well, you know… The one with Constance. Around this high, three-to-five years old, blonde and blue eyes?"

It was impossible to ignore the way Tate flinched upon hearing this, almost as if he wasn't expecting me to meet the boy; or at least hoping.

"Dunno," he shrugged finally. "I guess she was feeling lonely… After my sister died a few years ago, she's had no one. Another child to fuck up big time."

"Crazy how the adoption system works these days, right?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, seemingly not really caring about the topic; I guess I did a good job pretending I had no interest, since Tate loosened up a bit. "I mean, she must be over sixty… A pair may not get a child because they're gay, but someone on the verge of death can. I mean, we're all destined to die in one form or another, but the older you get, the more risks you have. It's stupid."

Tate put down the CD and reached for a Green Day one. "Do you often talk about death?", he asked nonchalantly.

"With someone who is dead? No. Ghosts don't usually talk, you know; they more like… Rawr, rawr, rawr, "I said, mimicking something resembling a wild animal attacking and roaring. Tate laughed, his dimples deep and cute, in a way ghosts shouldn't be allowed to. "And shriek. They do a lot of shrieking."

"You know a lot about supernatural," he said, and I shrugged.

"Just enough to survive."

A noise came from a level up, the attic; a heavy object was rolled from the sound of it.

"I promised Beau I'd play with him," Tate said, looking up at the ceiling and standing up before turning to me. He offered his hand to me and I accepted it, letting him to pull me up to my feet. "Would you like to come? I'm sure he'd like some company."

"Maybe another time, I'll get some sleep," I shook my head, delicately pushing the CD-pile closer to the wall with my feet. "I have some things to settle tomorrow."

I waited for Tate to disappear until I picked up the sack of salt I had under my bed to start making my salt-circle. I wasn't finished yet when I got company again.

"You didn't listen," Violet pronounced coolly, her arms folded.

"You said you don't care if I listen," I shrugged, straightening up since she was standing just in the way.

"Don't trust Tate."

"I don't."

"He was just in your room."

"You're in my room, too."

"I wasn't invited in."

"Do you want me to invite you?"

Violet smiled. It was hard to decide whether she found me funny – of course she did, I was naturally hilarious – or she was being sarcastic due to her lack of expressing emotions.

"Don't trust him," she insisted. " Don't get close to him, because he will kill you, one way or another. I'm not warning you because I'm being nice; I need you and your family alive so you can help us."

I looked at the ceiling upon hearing her reasoning, partly because I had to force back an eyeroll, and partly because a part of me knew Tate was up there with his brother. I should've gone with him instead.

"I won't be the one to help," I said, feeling like I was repeating myself over and over again every goddamn time. "I'll find my dad, bring him back and then I'm gone."

All of a sudden, Violet broke into a wide smile and chuckled, but this time I knew for sure that there was no happiness in it.

"Yes, you will. You're one of _those_ people." And with that, she was gone, leaving me no time to react or to ask what she meant exactly by 'those', but if I wanted to be honest, I knew the reason, and that's what frustrated me the most, among other things.

At the end of the day, Tuesday, once again, proved to be one of the most useless and thus hateful days ever, since I've achieved nothing but gained a headache, and probably some kind of forming mental illness. After I've settled into my bed following the completion of the salt circle, I fell to the border of sleep easily. But if someone is staying in a haunted house, it becomes hard to decide if a ghost is roaming the halls, or sleep is starting to seep into reality.

I haven't had a good sleep for a while, so I didn't pay attention to the gurgling laughing of a little boy echoing through the halls. I do faintly remember waking up to someone standing next to my bed, though; my vision was blurred and the room dark, but a really light mop of hair was visible. A child's giggling, again, and a tiny hand reaching out toward me. It seemed like a dream; and before the hand could reach me, another blonde head appeared, herding the first one somewhere I couldn't see. Something happened, and I fell back into sleep again.


End file.
